Meet Our Team

Principal Investigator

Rita Castro is the principal investigator of the Castro Lab and research assistant professor of nutritional sciences. She holds a professional degree in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Lisbon, and a master’s and doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Lisbon. 

In addition to her role at Penn State, Castro is also an assistant professor at the School of Pharmacy at Lisbon. She has extensive experience as a biologist, and her research interests include vascular biology and atherosclerosis. Her first studies explored the consequences of a hypomethylating environment for endothelial homeostasis and atherosclerosis using pharmacological, cellular, animal, and molecular methods. Her seminal work in this area showed that homocysteine indirectly modulates DNA, RNA, and protein methylation patterns by accumulating its metabolic precursor, S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH), a negative regulator of most cell methyltransferases. More recently, she became also interested in the effects of foods on cardiometabolic health.