Circadian Skin Biology
Short description
Circadian rhythms – our body’s internal 24-hour clock – regulate many processes in the skin, including barrier repair, DNA repair, and immune defense. These circadian rhythms help the skin to anticipate daily environmental challenges and maintain its balance.
Leonardo de Assis’ research focuses on how skin cell populations communicate over the course of the day and how this dynamic interaction – termed the skin interactome – contributes to tissue physiology. He aims to understand how the time-of-day–dependent communication supports skin health, how the rhythmicity may be altered in pathological states and how the timing of treatment can be used to improve skin therapies.
In his research, he combines in vitro systems, skin explant and reconstructed skin models, and in vivo approaches. Methodologies span molecular biology methods, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics, supported by circadian-specific bioinformatic analyses.
Publications
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Qualifications
Leonardo de Assis is a pharmacist (Brazil) and holds a PhD in physiology (Brazil). In his PhD and first postdoc (Brazil), he investigated the function of the skin’s light-sensitive system. In a second postdoc (Germany), he specialized in circadian biology and metabolism, focusing on the temporal regulation of thyroid hormones.
Leonardo de Assis is an Associate Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University AvÐÔ°®, Sweden, and a researcher at The Wallenberg Centre for Molecular and Translational Medicine, Gothenburg, Sweden. He leads the Circadian Skin Biology Lab (CSBL), where the research focuses on how the circadian clock influences skin biology and its potential for treating skin diseases.
Leonardo de Assis’ research interests span metabolism, skin biology, circadian rhythms, bioinformatics, and photobiology.
