Alexander Birbrair

Dr. Alexander Birbrair received his bachelor’s biomedical degree from Santa Cruz State University in Brazil. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience, in the field of stem cell biology, at the Wake Forest School of Medicine under the mentorship of Dr. Osvaldo Delbono. Then, he joined as a postdoc in stem cell biology at Dr. Paul Frenette’s laboratory at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York.

In 2016, he was appointed faculty at Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, where he started his own lab. His laboratory is interested in understanding how the cellular components of different tissues function and control disease progression. His group explores the roles of specific cell populations in the tissue microenvironment by using state-of-the-art techniques. His research is funded by the Serrapilheira Institute, CNPq, CAPES, and FAPEMIG.

In 2018, Alexander was elected affiliate member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), and in 2019, he was elected member of the Global Young Academy (GYA). He is the Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Current Tissue Microenvironment Reports and Associate Editor of Molecular Biotechnology.

In 2022, Alexander was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Department of Dermatology. Dr. Birbrair’s team is committed to understanding the mechanisms of impairment and failure of biological systems under pathological conditions with emphasis on preventing or reversing these deleterious processes. They focus on tissue stem cells, vasculature, and the peripheral nervous system present in different tissues microenvironments. His group is interested in studying mechanisms that lead to cell behavior changes during development, throughout life and disease. Alexander is currently a member of the University of Wisconsin Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Center and of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Alexander also serves in the editorial board of several other international journals: Stem Cell Reviews and Reports, Stem Cell Research, Stem Cells and Development, and Histology and Histopathology.