UHCOP Appoints Muscle Researcher Tomaz da Silva to Pharmacological and Pharmaceutial Sciences Department Faculty

June 18 — The University of Houston College of Pharmacy recently welcomed Meiricris Tomaz da Silva, Ph.D., as a research scientist in the college’s Department of Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Tomaz da Silva’s research is focused on developing therapeutic strategies for muscle repair and homeostasis. Specifically, she is investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern satellite cell self-renewal, proliferation, and differentiation during skeletal muscle regeneration. This line of work focuses on conditions that impair regenerative capacity, such as muscular dystrophies and Marfan syndrome.

Tomaz da Silva also is studying how muscle mass and function are regulated in catabolic conditions, including cancer cachexia, denervation, and aging, with the aims of identifying inflammatory and metabolic signaling pathways that drive muscle wasting and discovering targets that could prevent or reverse atrophy.

She earned her Ph.D. in sciences from the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil, and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical therapy from Methodist University of Piracicaba in Sao Paulo. Prior to her faculty appointment, Tomaz da Silva has worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of UHCOP Professor Ashok Kumar, Ph.D., since 2021. Her previous positions included postdoctoral fellow at USP’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, the University of Minnesota Department of Pediatrics and the Lillehei Heart Institute.

Tomaz da Silva has authored/coauthored two dozen papers in peer-reviewed publications, including iScience, JCI Insight, EMBO Reports, The FASEB Journal, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Science Advances. She also has presented nearly 30 oral and/or poster presentations at such meetings as the EMBO: Molecular Biology of Muscle Development and Regeneration, Frontiers in Myogenesis: Development, Function and Repair of the Muscle Cell, Experimental Biology, and the European Muscle Conference.