MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship for Óscar Freire-Agulleiro

Óscar Freire-Agulleiro is a postdoctoral researcher working under the supervision of Carmelo Quarta in the lab of Daniela Cota (Equipe Cota) at the Neurocentre Magendie. He has recently been awarded a prestigious two-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Life Sciences category for his project entitled “OBrAgeing: Studying the role of Tbx3-expressing neurons during obesity and ageing.”

The project is based on the hypothesis that hypothalamic Tbx3 acts as a key neuronal signal regulating systemic metabolic ageing in an obesogenic context, potentially offering a novel therapeutic target to preserve metabolic health in mammals. While Tbx3 is well established in the neuronal control of energy balance, its role within adult hypothalamic circuits during ageing remains largely unexplored.

Last year, Freire-Agulleiro was also awarded a competitive postdoctoral fellowship from the Galician Government (Spain) to investigate the mechanisms underlying the loss of identity of Pomc neurons, which can become so-called “ghost” cells that fail to express their main peptidergic marker.

About MSCA

This year, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) awarded €404.3 million to postdoctoral researchers. A total of 1,610 fellows were selected from 17,066 applicants, corresponding to an overall success rate of 9.6%. The programme supports excellent researchers worldwide and promotes international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral mobility.