Thomas Mortimer Thomas Mortimer, Ph.D., is a Junior Group Leader at VHIR where he heads the recently established Circadian Rhythms and Ageing Laboratory. Dr. Mortimer began his academic career at the Francis Crick Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Paola Scaffidi, where, during his doctorate, he studied the epigenetic ‘switches’ that facilitate neoplastic transformation in the context of glioblastoma. Later, as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Salvador Aznar Benitah at IRB Barcelona, he undertook research that revealed pathways of daily inter-tissue communication that act as a guarantor of tissue homeostasis in the face of damaging daily environmental rhythms. Most recently, Dr. Mortimer was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant and la Caixa Junior Leader fellowship with which he will now explore the interaction between the ageing of the body’s circadian system and cancer. Institutions of which they are part Head of group Circadian Rhythms and Ageing Laboratory Vall Hebron Institut de Recerca Thomas Mortimer Institutions of which they are part Head of group Circadian Rhythms and Ageing Laboratory Vall Hebron Institut de Recerca Thomas Mortimer, Ph.D., is a Junior Group Leader at VHIR where he heads the recently established Circadian Rhythms and Ageing Laboratory. Dr. Mortimer began his academic career at the Francis Crick Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Paola Scaffidi, where, during his doctorate, he studied the epigenetic ‘switches’ that facilitate neoplastic transformation in the context of glioblastoma. Later, as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Salvador Aznar Benitah at IRB Barcelona, he undertook research that revealed pathways of daily inter-tissue communication that act as a guarantor of tissue homeostasis in the face of damaging daily environmental rhythms. Most recently, Dr. Mortimer was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant and la Caixa Junior Leader fellowship with which he will now explore the interaction between the ageing of the body’s circadian system and cancer.
Circadian Rhythms and Ageing Laboratory Age is cancer’s primary risk factor and a significant determinant of how the resulting disease presents and progresses. Yet the specific contributions of ageing’s diverse hallmarks to this phenomenon are poorly defined. Circadian rhythms are a conserved adaptation that enables organisms to anticipate daily environmental cycles and thus mitigate their harmful effects on the body. However, in recent years, a decay of homeostatic cellular, tissue and systemic circadian rhythms has emerged as a hallmark of mammalian ageing. Concurrently, in the context of cancer, circadian inputs from the host are known to drive daily rhythms in tumour microenvironment composition, metastasis seeding and treatment response, whilst disruption of physiological circadian rhythms is itself an established tumour promoter. When considered together, this raises the intriguing possibility that ageing of the circadian system may reshape cancer circadian biology in a manner pertinent to its prevention and treatment. In particular, three key questions emerge: 1) Does ageing of the body and its circadian system change the tumourigenic potency of circadian rhythm disruption? 2) Are the circadian rhythms of a tumour altered by ageing of the host and its circadian system? 3) If cancer circadian biology is rewired by ageing, can its origins be identified? In the recently established Circadian Rhythms and Ageing Laboratory, Dr. Mortimer and colleagues combine cutting-edge models of ageing and cancer with targeted circadian rhythm disruption and circadian-omics to define how ageing impinges upon the circadian biology of cancer. By doing so, they hope to provide a roadmap for identifying interventions that diminish cancer risk later in life, and contribute to refining and expanding the burgeoning field of cancer chronotherapy. Objective 1: Determine how ageing affects the tumourigenicity of circadian rhythm disruption Objective 2: Characterise how ageing reshapes tumour circadian biology and circadian tumour-host interactions Objective 3: Define the source(s) of tumour circadian biology ‘ageing’ Objective 4: Enhance tissue circadian clocks to dissect and mitigate the ageing process Awards and funding: La Caixa Junior Leader Fellowship 2026 ERC Starting Grant 2025 Marie Curie COFUND Postdoctoral Fellowship – IRB Barcelona 2019 CRUK Doctoral Fellowship – Francis Crick Institute 2014 Best Research Project Dissertation – Biochemistry Department, Oxford University 2014 Conferences and presentations: Invited Lecture –Ageing and Stem Cells, Universitat de Barcelona 2024-2026 Invited Speaker – Skin Ageing and Challenges 2025 Invited Speaker – Keystone Ageing 2025 Organising committee – Emerging Leaders in Biomedicine 2024 Organising committee – Skin Ageing and Challenges 2024 Invited speaker – ESCI Annual Conference 2024 Selected talk – Epithelial Differentiation and Keratinization GRC 2023 Selected talk – European Biological Rhythms Society conference 2022 Professional contributions: Co-reviewer – Nature Cell Biology, Cell Stem Cell 2023-Present Reviewer – Cell Reports, FEBS Journal, Scientific Reports 2022-Present Evaluator – French Muscular Dystrophy Association (AFM Téléthon) 2024 Selected publications: Circadian clock communication during homeostasis and ageing Mortimer, T*, Smith J.G.*, Muñoz-Cánoves, P.*, Benitah, SA* Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 2025. PMID: 39753699. The epidermal circadian clock integrates and subverts brain signals to guarantee skin homeostasis Mortimer, T*, Zinna, VM, Atalay, M… Welz PS*, Muñoz-Cánoves P*, Benitah SA* Cell Stem Cell. 2024. PMID: 38701785. Brain-muscle communication prevents muscle aging by maintaining daily physiology Kumar, A#, Vaca-Dempere, M#, Mortimer, T… Benitah SA*, Muñoz-Cánoves P*, Science. 2024. PMID: 38696572. Liver and muscle circadian clocks cooperate to support glucose tolerance in mice Smith JG#, Koronowski KB#, Mortimer T, Sato T… Benitah SA, Muñoz-Cánoves P, Sassone-Corsi P Cell Rep. 2023. PMID: 37267101. Getting the clock back on its feet: targeting the circadian clock to treat osteoarthritis Mortimer T FEBS J. 2022. PMID: 36271686 Collecting mouse livers for transcriptome analysis of daily rhythms Mortimer T, Welz PS, Benitah SA, Koronowski KB STAR Protoc. 2021. PMID: 34036284 Redistribution of EZH2 promotes malignant phenotypes by rewiring developmental programmes Mortimer T, Wainwright EN, Patel H, Siow BM, Jaunmuktane Z, Brandner S, Scaffidi P EMBO Rep. 2019. PMID: 31468686 *indicates co-correspondence, #indicates co-first authorship
