{"id":27916,"date":"2026-05-13T14:36:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/?p=27916"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:36:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:36:51","slug":"congratulations-to-our-new-phd-sagan-de-castro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/congratulations-to-our-new-phd-sagan-de-castro\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to our new PhD, Sagan de Castro!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. de Castro successfully defended his Phd thesis, Neuroimmune Mechanisms of Adolescent Alcohol-Induced Neuropathology” under the guidance of Dr. Ryan Vetreno!”<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

The full title of Dr. de Castro’s defense presentation was, “Neuroimmune Mechanisms of Adolescent Alcohol-Induced Neuropathology: From Epigenetic Repression to Retrotransposon Activation, Behavioral Outcomes, and Genetic Vulnerability.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Publications<\/h2>\n
\n
\n

Impact of Neuroimmune System Activation by Adolescent Binge Alcohol Exposure on Adult Neurobiology.\u00a0<\/a>Macht V, de Castro S,<\/strong> Vetreno RP. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2025;1473:179-208. doi: 10.1007\/978-3-031-81908-7_9. PMID:\u00a040128480.<\/p>\n

Microglia either promote or restrain TRAIL-mediated excitotoxicity caused by A\u03b21-42 oligomers. <\/a>Zou J, McNair E, DeCastro S,<\/strong> Lyons SP, Mordant A, Herring LE, Vetreno RP, Coleman LG Jr. J Neuroinflammation. 2024 Sep 1;21(1):215. doi: 10.1186\/s12974-024-03208-2. PMID:\u00a039218898. PMC11367981<\/p>\n

In Vitro Antimalarial Activity of Trichothecenes against Liver and Blood Stages of Plasmodium\u00a0Species.\u00a0<\/a>Parvatkar PT, Maher SP, Zhao Y, Cooper CA, de Castro ST<\/strong>, P\u00e9neau J, Vantaux A, Witkowski B, Kyle DE, Manetsch R. J Nat Prod. 2024 Feb 23;87(2):315-321. doi: 10.1021\/acs.jnatprod.3c01019. Epub 2024 Jan 23. PMID: 38262446. PMC10897926<\/p>\n

Synthesis of Mono- and Bisperoxide-Bridged Artemisinin Dimers to Elucidate the Contribution of Dimerization to Antimalarial Activity.\u00a0<\/a>Lichorowic CL, Zhao Y, Maher SP, Pad\u00edn-Irizarry V, Mendiola VC, de Castro ST,<\/strong> Worden JA, Casandra D, Kyle DE, Manetsch R. ACS Infect Dis. 2021 Jul 9;7(7):2013-2024. doi: 10.1021\/acsinfecdis.1c00066. Epub 2021 Apr 1. PMID: 33792305. PMC9247344<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Dr. de Castro also has 4 more unpublished papers.<\/div>\n

Honors, Awards & Highlights<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • \n
    I was a team lead and semifinalist in the 2026 Southeastern Case Competition<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  • \n
    I was inducted into Sigma Xi in 2025<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  • \n
    I was a best poster finalist at the Triangle Society for Neuroscience in 2024<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  • \n
    I gave a talk at the Society for Neuroscience Scientific Meeting in 2024<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  • \n
    I was named an inventor on an international patent on Tetrahydroacridinone Analogs for the Treatment and Prevention of Malaria (WO2024258904A1)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    We wish you all the best, Sagan!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Dr. de Castro successfully defended his Phd thesis, Neuroimmune Mechanisms of Adolescent Alcohol-Induced Neuropathology” under the guidance of Dr. Ryan Vetreno!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22429,"featured_media":27927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,2,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-student-postdoc-news","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/LinkedIn-Option-B2-250-2.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/LinkedIn-Option-B2-250-2.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/LinkedIn-Option-B2-250-2.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/LinkedIn-Option-B2-250-2.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/LinkedIn-Option-B2-250-2-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"Dr. Sagan de Castro, PhD","category_details":[{"name":"Featured News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/featured\/"},{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/"},{"name":"Student & Postdoc News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/student-postdoc-news\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27916"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28039,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27916\/revisions\/28039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}