IPA Profiles

João Carlos Barbosa Machado
(Brazil), Board of Directors

Dr. João Carlos Barbados Machado (Brazil) graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 1988. After his residency in Internal Medicine in Brazil (1989-1990) he did a postgraduate fellowship in geriatric medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff – United Kingdom (1990- 1992), including a travelling fellowship in the United States at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and The John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Dr. Machado is currently involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in the field of geriatric neuropsychiatry at the two main Universities in his hometown, Belo Horizonte. His clinical activities have been concentrated at two general hospitals as the Head of the Department of Geriatric Medicine, which includes the supervision of a Clinical Attachment Program, and as the Associate Clinical Director of a Geriatric Outpatient Unit specializing in the neuropsychiatry of old age.

Dr. Machado’s research interests are focused mainly on dementia. His M.Sc. thesis was on Molecular Biology of Alzheimer’s Disease. His research on somatic mutation analysis of the amyloid precursor protein and presenilins 1 and 2 in brains of patients with Alzheimer’s Disease was done through a collaborative study with the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and the Institute of Genetics, Tel Hashomer Hospital, affiliated with the Sackler Medical School Tel Aviv University in Israel (1996). He is now proceeding with his Ph.D. research focusing on Mitochondrial DNA and Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition to his position on IPA’s Board of Directors, to which he was elected in 2000, Dr. Machado holds the office of President of the Brazilian Association of Geriatric Neuropsychiatry (ABNPG), of which he is also a founding member. In addition, he currently serves as a Counselor of the Department of Health for the Elderly of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, as an Executive Board Member of the Committee of International Affairs of the Brazilian Geriatrics and Gerontology Society, and as a Scientific Committee Member of the Brazilian Alzheimer’s Disease Association. In his recent past, Dr. Machado served as the President of the Chapter of the State of Minas Gerais of the Brazilian Geriatrics and Gerontology Society (1996/1999).

Actively involved with the promotion of psychogeriatrics in Latin America, Dr. Machado has organized several national and international meetings. His focus has been to improve scientific progress with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary collaboration and ultimately the quality of care for the elderly population in Latin American countries. After chairing the Porto Alegre IPA and ABNPG Regional Meeting, he was appointed as a member of the IPA’s Meetings Committee. Dr. Machado is assisting in the formation of the IPA’s Latin American Initiative that has the primary goal of developing policies and guidelines pertinent to the region through the organization of effective collaborative clinical, research and educational programs.

Dr. Machado has been a member of IPA since 1993 and was elected to the Board of Directors in 2000. He can be contacted at jcmachado@attglobal.net.