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The daily agenda is subject to change. We appreciate your patience.
McNamara Alumni Center, University Hall
Pinnacle Room – Graduate Hotel
Pinnacle Room – Graduate Hotel
Simon Bekker-Jensen has a PhD in Cancer Biology from the Technical University of Denmark and the Danish Cancer Research Centre. Prior to establishing his independent group within cellular stress signaling in 2016, he has 10 years of experience in research within the DNA damage response. Amongst others, he holds a Consolidator Grant from The European Research Council and is an EMBO Young Investigator.
The major research theme in the Bernlohr laboratory is the metabolic relationships between obesity and cellular senescence. The laboratory specifically examines macrophage-adipocyte crosstalk, lipid signaling, and the activation of the senescence program by oxidized lipids.
Dr. Christina Camell is an Assistant Professor at the Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism and in the Department on Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics.
We investigate the immune response and the accumulation in inflammation during aging. We are specifically focused on metabolic, non-lymphoid tissues.
Dr. Cohen graduated in 1986 with highest honors from the Technion Medical School in Israel and trained at Stanford University. He held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania, and at UCLA where he led the Diabetes Research Center. In 2012 he was appointed as the Dean of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. He received numerous awards through his career, including a National Institute of Aging “EUREKA”-Award and the NIH-Director-Transformative RO1-Grant. He also received the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging and the AFAR Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction. He is the Cofounder of CohBar, a biotechnology company developing mitochondrial peptides for diseases of Aging. Dr. Cohen published over 350 papers in top scientific journals focusing on aging, cancer, diabetes, and the emerging science of microproteins and his h-index is 100.
Dr. Cummings received his training in Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology at UCSF and is Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics (emeritus) at the UCSF. He directs the San Francisco Coordinating Center affiliated with the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. He founded the Coordinating Center 40 years ago and led many of the major studies about treatments for osteoporosis and designed and led large studies about the biology of human aging. Dr. Cummings has published over 600 peer-reviewed publications, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the IOM) in the National Academy of Sciences and honored with several international awards for his clinical research in osteoporosis and aging.
Dr. Cummings is the corresponding PI for the Study of Muscle Mobility and Aging (SOMMA), a cohort study of 879 people age 70+ designed to elucidate the biological predictors of loss of fitness and strength and mobility disability with aging. It uniquely includes muscle and fat biopsies, total body imaging, and extensive testing of physical and cognitive performance. With Nathan LeBrasseur, he has recently examined the association between systemic markers of senescence (SASP) and aging outcomes. He also leads a study testing whether proteins that mediate benefits of heterochronic parabiosis in mice are associated with beneficial outcomes in older people.
Marco Demaria is currently an Associate Professor in Cellular Ageing at the Medical Faculty of the University of Groningen and the Group Leader of the laboratory of Cellular Senescence and Age-related Pathologies of the European Research Institute for the Biology of ageing (ERIBA). He obtained his PhD at the University of Torino, Italy, under the supervision of prof. Valeria Poli. In 2010, he joined the laboratory of prof. Judith Campisi as a postdoctoral fellow at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, USA. In 2015, Dr. Demaria returned to Europe and joined the University of Groningen and the European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing (ERIBA) with a tenure-track position. His work is supported by several agencies and companies. Dr. Demaria serves as Editor in Chief for npj Aging, and as reviewer for several journals and funding agencies. In 2018 he co-founded a start-up company, Cleara Biotech. Since 2022 he is the President of the International Cell Senescence Association (ICSA).
Dr. Demaria is focused towards understanding the molecular basis of aging and age-related disorders,
and identifying new molecular and cellular targets to improve health and longevity. At the core of
his research is cellular senescence, a potent tumor suppressive mechanism characterized by a strong
secretory and pro-inflammatory phenotype. During his postdoctoral studies, he has characterized a
new transgenic mouse model for the study of senescence in vivo, and demonstrated that senescent
cells accumulate and persist during aging and under genotoxic stress, where they contribute to
disease. However, he has also demonstrated that sub-populations of senescent cells cover positive
roles during tissue repair.
Now, the goal of the Demaria laboratory is to define the conditions and phenotypes that determine
whether a senescent cell covers beneficial or detrimental functions. The laboratory is developing
the following projects, with the support of many collaborators and funding schemes:
Dr. Dong obtained his PhD in bioinformatics in the Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013. He completed postdoc training in the Department of Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2021. Since 2021, he started the Dong laboratory in the Institute of the Biology of Aging (iBAM) and the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development (GCD) at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Dr. Dong is interesting in understanding the role of somatic mutations in aging.
The general interest of the Dong Laboratory is discovering causal mechanisms of human aging. Currently, it focuses on testing the mutation theory of aging: if accumulation of DNA mutations in normal somatic cells is a causal mechanism to age-related functional decline. The lab approaches this by developing and applying state-of-the-art single-cell multi-omics technologies and machine learning algorithms.
Dr. Garovic is Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minnesota, and holds joint appointment in Obstetrics & Gynecology. She currently serves as Chair of Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Vice-Chair for Research, Department of Internal Medicine, and as Director, Clinical Resaearch and Trials Unit, Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. She has been NIH-funded over the course of 15 years, she serves as a chartered member of the NIH Pregnancy/Neonatology study section (2020-2024), and has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers.
Her clinical and research interests in hypertensive pregnancy disorders and preeclampsia span several research areas: diagnosis and treatment of hypertension in pregnancy, underlying molecular mechanisms, with the most recent focus on senescence, epigenetics, and epidemiology of long-term cardiovascular and renal effects, with the long-term objective of identifying diagnostic biomarkers and potential new therapeutic targets in order to improve immediate and long-term outcomes of this enigmatic disease.
Matthew Gill, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology & Development at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus. His research lab is part of the Institute on the Biology of Aging & Metabolism and the Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging. His research program has focused on discovering novel signaling pathways and mechanisms through a combination of genetics, drug screening and biochemical approaches. This approach has led to the identification of candidate ligands for an orphan nuclear receptor, an endocannabinoid system in C. elegans and a novel truncated isoform of the nematode insulin receptor.
Vadim Gladyshev is Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Associate Member at the Broad Institute. Dr. Gladyshev received his undergraduate (1988) and graduate (1992) degrees from Moscow State University, followed by postdoc training at NIH (1992-1997). Dr. Gladyshev was elected to AAAS, recognized as Redox Pioneer and received the Osborne and Mendel Award. In 2021, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of NIH Pioneer, Transformative and Eureka awards to study aging. Dr. Gladyshev’s lab focuses on studying aging, rejuvenation and lifespan control using a combination of experimental and computational approaches. He has published more than 400 articles.
Research in our lab is primarily on aging, lifespan control and rejuvenation. We also have longstanding interests in selenium and redox biology. We use both computational and experimental approaches. In the aging area, the lab studies mechanisms of aging, lifespan control and rejuvenation, as well as the fundamental biology of aging and the relationship between aging and age-related diseases. Aging is a complex process that can be best understood from a systems perspective, which often requires the use of omics approaches, evolutionary and mechanistic insights, as well as their integration. This is the reason we collected large datasets on gene expression and metabolite levels across mammals, flies and yeast, sequenced and analyzed genomes of many long-lived species (most notably, the naked mole rat and Brandt’s bat) and developed DNA methylation aging clocks in mice. We also developed molecular signatures of longevity across mammals, across human cell types and across longevity interventions in mice and used them to identify new longevity interventions through drug screens and animal studies. The Gladyshev laboratory is located in the Harvard Medical School New Research Building, a premier facility where many programs in genomics, systems biology and aging are located. I am also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. I have been a recipient of the NIH Director’s Pioneer and Transformative awards, and my lab has published approximately 400 articles.
Robert H. (Rob) Henning is professor of Pharmacology at the UMCG, Groningen. He obtained an MD (Groningen) and subsequently specialised in Anaesthesiology (Leiden), after which he gradually moved into experimental research. He has (co-)authored 200+ peer reviewed articles, supervised 30 PhD students and obtained 7 patents out of his research. Apart from being considered an opinion leader in research on hibernation, he has contributed extensively to Medical education programs, and is the initiator of 3 spin-out companies.
Rob’s research focusses on development of novel therapeutics to prevent or combat organ damage. To this end, he studies hibernation in mammals to disclose the (partly cell-autonomous) mechanisms that protect their organs, for instance to against hypoxic damage and oxidative stress. This research has led, among other things, to the development of 6-chromanols, a new class of drugs that counteracts the derailment of the function of mitochondria in stressed cells.
Dr. Diana Jurk, Ph.D. is an Associated Professor at Mayo Clinic Rochester and directs the Biology of
Aging and Age-related Diseases laboratory.
Dr Jurk is originally from Germany where she graduated with a degree in Natural Sciences from the
University of Freiberg in 2004. Following her degree, she conducted biomedical research at Bayer,
first in Wuppertal and then in Leverkusen (where she was awarded a master’s degree).
Having decided to move to academia, Dr. Jurk was first a research assistant at the Uniklinik in
Freiburg, Germany (2005-2007) and then conducted her PhD studies at Newcastle University in the UK
(2007-2012), in the area of liver senescence and inflammation.
In 2015, Dr. Jurk was awarded the Newcastle University Faculty fellowship and in 2018 the
prestigious Springboard Award from The Academy of Medical Sciences which allowed her to direct an
independent research program. In 2018 she moved her research team to Mayo Clinic, Rochester.
Diana’s work has led to new insights into the mechanisms driving the process of cellular senescence
in the context of liver disease and neurodegeneration. Her work, published in Nature Communications,
has demonstrated a key role for senescence in Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. More recently, her
team published in Cell Metabolism the first evidence for the involvement of senescence in
neuropsychiatric diseases and in cognitive decline during aging (Aging Cell, 2021).
Cellular senescence is characterized by an irreversible cell cycle arrest and a pro-inflammatory senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), which is a major contributor to aging and age-related diseases. Clearance of senescent cells has been shown to improve brain function in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases as well as obesity. However, it is still unknown whether senescent cell clearance alleviates cognitive dysfunction during the aging process. To investigate this, we first conducted single-nuclei and single-cell RNA-seq in the hippocampus from young and aged mice. We observed an age-dependent increase in p16Ink4a senescent cells, which was more pronounced in microglia and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and characterized by a SASP. We then aged INK-ATTAC mice, in which p16Ink4a-positive senescent cells can be genetically eliminated upon treatment with the drug AP20187 and treated them either with AP20187 or with the senolytic cocktail Dasatinib and Quercetin. We observed that both strategies resulted in a decrease in p16Ink4a exclusively in the microglial population, resulting in reduced microglial activation and reduced expression of SASP factors. Importantly, both approaches significantly improved cognitive function in aged mice. Our data provide proof-of-concept for senolytic interventions' being a potential therapeutic avenue for alleviating age-associated cognitive impairment.
Jamie Justice is an Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine Section on Gerontology and Geriatrics at Wake Forest School of Medicine, Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention, and Co-Lead of the WF Pepper Center’s Integrative Biology Core.
Dr. Jamie Justice’s research is within the emerging field of geroscience, and she works to evaluate the functional role of biological processes underlying human aging. This includes: 1) developing outcomes and biomarker frameworks for aging outcomes trials, and 2) establishing functional consequences of cellular senescence in older adults. She is committed to creating a diverse multidisciplinary workforce in geroscience through the NIA-supported Geroscience Education and Training Network. Jamie’s work is funded through the NIH and American Federation for Aging Research. She is recipient of the Jarrahi Research Scholars Fund in Geroscience Innovation, and the 2022 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star in Aging Research Award.
Dr. Matt Kaeberlein is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of
Washington (UW) School of Medicine, with Adjunct appointments in Genome Sciences and Oral Health
Sciences. Dr. Kaeberlein’s research interests are focused on understanding biological mechanisms of
aging in order to facilitate translational interventions that promote healthspan and improve quality
of life for people and companion animals. He has published more than 250 scientific papers and has
been recognized by several prestigious awards including young investigator awards from the Ellison
Medical Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association, the Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star in Aging
Research Award, the Murdock Trust Award, the NIA Nathan W. Shock Award, and the Robert W. Kleemeier
Award for outstanding research in the field of gerontology.
Dr. Kaeberlein has been awarded Fellow status with the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS), the American Aging Association (AGE), and the Gerontological Society of America
(GSA). He is currently the CEO and Chair of AGE, Past-President of AGE, has served on the Board of
Directors for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and AGE, and has
served as Biological Sciences Chair and on Council for GSA.
Dr. Kaeberlein is the founding Director of the University of Washington (UW) Healthy Aging and
Longevity Research Institute, the Director of the NIH Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic
Biology of Aging at UW, Director of the Biological Mechanisms of Healthy Aging Training Program, and
founder and co-Director of the Dog Aging Project.
Dr. Kaeberlein received a B.S. in Biochemistry and a B.A. in Mathematics from Western Washington
University in 1997. He then received his Ph.D. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 2002. He has been a faculty member at the University of Washington since 2006.
Dr. Sundeep Khosla is the Dr. Francis Chucker and Nathan Landow Research Professor of Medicine and Physiology and a Mayo Foundation Distinguished Investigator. Dr. Khosla received his A.B. degree from Harvard College and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He was subsequently a resident in Internal Medicine and a fellow in Endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1988 he moved to Mayo Clinic, where his research has focused on mechanisms of age-related bone loss and osteoporosis. Dr. Khosla has served as Director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Dean for Clinical and Translational Science at Mayo Clinic. He has also served as Chair of the NIH SBDD Study Section, on the Councils of the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, and as President of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). Dr. Khosla has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Frederic C. Bartter Award for Clinical Investigation and the William F. Neuman Award for Outstanding Scientific Contributions from the ASBMR, the presentation of the Louis V. Avioli Plenary Lecture at the ASBMR annual meeting, the Outstanding Clinical Investigator Award and Plenary Lecture from the Endocrine Society, the Frontiers in Science Award from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the Jacobaeus Prize for outstanding research in Endocrinology, and election to the ASCI and AAP. Dr. Khosla currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Bone, has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and as a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Bone, and Endocrine Reviews.
Role of cellular senescence in age-related bone loss; interactions of senescent mesenchymal and immune cells; sympathetic nervous system regulation of bone metabolism.
Morten Scheibye-Knudsen did his medical training at the University of Copenhagen including a short scholarship investigating mitochondrial physiology. During medical school he founded his first company, Forsoegsperson.dk, which has grown to be the largest provider of volunteers for clinical trials in Denmark. After medical school he worked as a medical doctor in Denmark and Greenland before moving to basic science as a post doctoral fellow at the National Institute on Aging, NIH, in Baltimore. Here, he utilized computational and wet lab science to investigate how DNA damage contributes to the complex phenotypes seen in premature and normal aging. In 2016 he returned to Copenhagen as an assistant professor to start his own research program focusing on aging. In 2018, he received tenure and was promoted to associate professor. His team (~20 people) utilizes computational science, animal models, gene editing, and high-throughput approaches such as high-content microscopy and omics investigations to understand the molecular basis of aging and age-associated phenotypes. Lab generated data is routinely analyzed through AI-assisted pipelines such as novel cellular senescence classifiers and fully automated animal tracking (www.tracked.bio). He has published his work in some of the best journals in the world including Cell, Cell Metabolism, Nature Aging, New England Journal of Medicine and many others. In addition to his core research, he has been lecturing at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health for 8 years; He is a chief editor at Frontiers in Aging running the Aging Interventions section; He organizes the largest annual conference on Aging Research and Drug discovery (www.agingpharma.org); He is an advisor to Deep Longevity, the Longevity Vision Fund and Ars Salus; He has given invited presentations at top institutions (NIH, MIT, Harvard, NUS, Karolinska and others); and received several awards for his research.
Ageing and major chronic diseases are associated with an accumulation of damage to our DNA. Accordingly, hereditary diseases displaying premature/accelerated aging are most often caused by defects in various DNA repair processes. In this lecture, I will elucidate our work utilising computational approaches, wet lab analysis, animal models and clinical trials to understanding how DNA damage leads to diseases and what we can do to attenuate the consequence of damage to our genome allowing everyone longer and healthier lives.
George A. Kuchel is a geriatrician, gerontologist and professor of medicine at UConn Health in
Farmington, CT. He holds the Travelers Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology, and also serves as
Director of the UConn Center on Aging.
Dr Kuchel obtained his medical training at McGill, followed by training in Geriatric Medicine and
Gerontology at Harvard, together with postdoctoral research fellowships in Epidemiology at Harvard
and in Neurobiology at Harvard and Mount Sinai.
Dr Kuchel’s research has focused on Precision Gerontology. This overarching effort seeks to discover
and test interventions designed to enhance function and independence in older adults by targeting
heterogeneity in aging-related declines involving host defense, mobility, cognition and bladder
control.
Dr Kuchel leads the NIA Claude D Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at UConn. He is also MPI
of the NIA Translational Geroscience Network, the NIA Geroscience Education and Training (GET)
Network and the KAPP-Sen Cellular Senescence Tissue Mapping Collaborative.
From August 1th, 2022 onwards, Folkert Kuipers PhD (1957) acts as Scientific Director of ERIBA and head of the Department of the Biology of Ageing at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). Folkert studied biology/biochemistry at the University of Groningen (UoG) and recieved his PhD degree in Medical Sciences at UoG in 1987. After a research fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences and an Established Investigatorship from the Netherlands Heart Foundation, he was appointed as Professor of Pediatrics in 2000 and was head of the Laboratory of Pediatrics at UMCG from 2000-2008 and from 2016-2022. His research program deals with molecular (dys)regulation of cholesterol, bile acid and lipid metabolism and transport in liver and intestine in inherited and age-related chronic metabolic diseases, including roles of the gut microbiome. He is (co-)author of >350 peer-reviewed publications and has supervised >40 PhD theses. From 2008-2016 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences/vice-chairman of the board of UMCG and was involved in initiation and implementation of the Healthy Ageing program at UMCG, with population cohort LifeLines and ERIBA as scientific flagship projects. He is member of the External Advisory Boards of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center for Aging Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA, and the Multidisciplinary Institute for Ageing (MIA), University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Derek Mann is Professor or Hepatology at Newcastle University and a visiting Professor at Koc University, Istanbul. He carried out PhD studies from 1986-1990 at University College London on cell signalling in the nervous system before postdoctoral work at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical School in London. In 1991 he moved to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge for further postdoctoral work on the molecular virology of the human immunodeficiency virus before taking up a lectureship at the University of Southampton where he began working on the biology of liver disease and fibrosis. He was awarded a Personal Chair at Southampton in 2002 prior to becoming the Professor of Hepatology at Newcastle University in 2006 where he established the Newcastle Fibrosis Research Group (NFRG) which takes a multi-disciplinary and multi-organ approach to investigating the biology of inflammation, fibrosis and more recently cancer. His work and that of his team spans the biology of inflammation in tissue ageing, the transcriptional and epigenetic control of fibrosis and reprogramming neutrophil phenotype to revitalise the immunosuppressed tumour immune microenvironment. Derek has been awarded multiple research grants from the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK. In 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2017 in recognition of his translational work in chronic liver disease. Derek is a keen mentor with a high proportion of his former PhD students and postdoctoral assistants now leading their own research groups. In 2019 he became a co-founder, director and chief scientific office of FibroFind Ltd which is now the leading pre-clinical contract research organisation in the fibrosis field.
The main emphasis for my research is to illuminate the biology of chronic liver disease and cancer using a combination of mouse models, human tissues and human models of tissue injury and fibrosis. An additional interest are the mechanistic links between inflammation, cellular senescence, fibrosis and cancer, and the opportunity to advance this knowledge for the design of new treatments in liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. The development of human tissue models for replacement of animal models in the study of chronic disease is also a major research interest both in my academic and commercial roles.
I am a lecturer in Translational Biology of Ageing at Newcastle University. I was originally an
exercise scientist and became interested in energy metabolism and mitochondria. I took my Ph.D. on
mitochondrial function and reactive oxygen species generation in ageing at Cambridge University, and
since then this field has become my expertise. Since I came to Newcastle University, I have made
critical contributions to the research on the roles of mitochondrial function and their changes in
cellular senescence and in organismal ageing, which has been the major strengths in Newcastle.
Through my expertise on mitochondrial and cellular metabolism I also have extensive research
collaboration across different biomedical fields since my early career, and have established and led
a university core facility for Metabolic analyses using Seahorse Analyzer technology. My work as
scientific officer, from conception of ideas, experimental supervision to writing up, has played a
key role for over a dozen of high impact publications.
I am a committee member for the Faculty of Medical Sciences Ageing and Geroscience theme and leads a
workstream ‘Restoring health’ for Centre for Healthier Lives.
My current research includes mechanisms of mitochondrial dysfunction during cell senescence, and developments of the therapies against age related conditions and diseases using senescence and mitochondrial targeted approaches. I am also interested in technological and methodological developments and their applications to research, and have a number of local and international industry connections.
Laura Niedernhofer joined the University of Minnesota in July 2018 to direct the new Institute on the Biology of Aging & Metabolism and Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging. She is also a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at UMN. Dr. Niedernhofer’s expertise is in DNA damage and repair, genome instability disorders, cellular senescence and aging. Her research program is centered on studying fundamental mechanisms of aging and developing therapeutics to target them. She contributed to the discovery of a new class of drugs called senolytics. Laura has served on study section for NCI, NIEHS and NIA. She has been awarded for research in aging, cancer and environmental health science and was the 2018 recipient of the Vincent Cristafolo Rising Star in Aging Research awarded by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR). She is currently serving on the Advisory Council to the Division of Aging Biology, NIA and on the Board of Directors for American Federation of Aging Research. Laura was recently nominated to The Academy for Health and Lifespan Research.
Director, Institute of the Biology of Aging and Metabolism https://med.umn.edu/aging
Medical Discovery Team Biology of Aging https://med.umn.edu/research/medical-discovery-teams
Professor Biochemistry, Molecular Biology & Biophysics https://cbs.umn.edu/academics/departments/bmbb
University of Minnesota, School of Medicine https://med.umn.edu/
Nuno Raimundo obtained his Biochemistry degree at the Un. Lisbon (Portugal), followed by PhD studies focused on mitochondrial diseases at the Un. Helsinki (Finland). He then moved to Yale University for postdoctoral training, where he explored signaling mechanisms associated with mitochondrial malfunction in mammals, using cells and mice. Nuno started his lab in Germany with a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. Upon completion of the funding, he relocated his laboratory to Penn State College of Medicine, where he is Associate Professor, studying how mitochondria communicate with other cellular organelles in physiology, organelle diseases and age-related pathology.
My lab employs cellular and mouse models of organelle defects (mitochondria, lysosomes, peroxisomes, ER), and focuses on the identification of signaling pathways underlying the phenotypes. We found that mitochondria and lysosomes are dependent on one another. The ultimate goal is to harness the signaling and metabolic environment to design novel strategies to target mitochondrial and lysosomal diseases, for which there is no cure. Because mitochondria and lysosomes get progressively dysfunctional during aging, our findings will be applicable to age-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative syndromes. We have identified the mechanisms by which acute and chronic mitochondrial stress regulate lysosomal biogenesis and function, showed how defects in lysosomal catabolism repress mitochondrial biogenesis and function, and how autophagy defects trigger neurodegeneration in vivo and affect mitochondrial function but not dynamics. Our latest work shows how impaired lysosomal acidification, a common observation in aging and age-related pathologies, results in perturbed iron homeostasis and mitochondria-dependent inflammation in vivo.
Lene Juel Rasmussen is Professor at the University of Copenhagen and Executive Director of the interdisciplinary aging center, Center for Healthy Aging, residing within the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Her research aims to unravel the complex molecular basics of aging and the development of aging associated diseases. Within this context, her research group focuses on the molecular understanding of mitochondrial dysfunction and how cells achieve to preserve mitochondrial and nuclear DNA integrity as well as DNA repair.
The hallmarks of aging, includes genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication. A significant amount of scientific evidence has been generated on the role of individual hallmarks on aging, and how they are involved in loss of function and the etiology of age-related diseases. My research addresses whether a specific hallmark by itself could be the primary driver of all aging phenotypes or if different combinations of interactions produce different aging phenotypes. Taken together, emerging evidence points to complex interactions as being the likely driver of aging. I am specifically investigating the interaction between mitochondrial dysfunction and genomic instability.
Marissa Schafer joined Mayo Clinic faculty as an Assistant Professor and Senior Associate Consultant in the Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neurology in May 2020. She is an active member of the Mayo Clinic Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging. Dr. Schafer’s NIH-funded research focuses on identifying mechanisms that can be targeted to counteract age-dependent cognitive dysfunction. She is a member of the NIH Cellular Senescence Network Consortium. Dr. Schafer is passionate about prioritizing diversity and inclusion in research and is actively engaged in a wide range of local and international service activities focused on education and science communication.
Age is a primary risk factor for multiple chronic conditions, including cognitive decline and dementia. Dr. Schafer’s research focuses on cellular and molecular mechanisms that contribute to age-related brain dysfunction, with the goal of developing strategies to prevent, slow, or reverse cognitive decline. Cellular senescence and inflammation are interconnected causes and consequences of tissue aging. Dr. Schafer and her research team synergistically investigate the brain-specific and peripheral impact of senescent cells and inflammation on brain aging and cognitive health. Researchers in Dr. Schafer's lab implement a multidisciplinary approach that spans the basic-to-translational continuum. They leverage state-of-the-art cellular, molecular, and behavioral methods in mouse and cell-based models of aging, coupled with clinical data and biomarker analyses, to discover mechanisms of dysfunction and develop therapeutics to combat age-related brain dysfunction.
Yousin Suh, Ph.D., is the Charles and Marie Robertson of Reproductive Sciences in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Professor of Genetics and Development, and Director of Reproductive Aging in Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. She investigates the (epi)genetic component that underlies the interface of intrinsic aging and disease based on the identification of (epi)genome sequence variants associated with age-related disease risk or its opposite, i.e., an unusual resistance to such disease. To investigate the functional impact of (epi)genetic variants, she applies specific functional tests, including in silico modeling, cell culture assays and mouse models. Her contributions in the field have been recognized by the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging. She has organized numerous international symposiums on functional genomics of aging, is on the Editorial Boards of numerous Journals including PLoS Genetics and Aging Cell as an Associate Editor, and participates in advisory committee members for several research institutions and companies.
Dr. Tchkonia is an Assistant Professor and Associated Consultant at the department of Physiology and
Biomedical Engendering, at Mayo Clinic. Her research interests involve discovery science,
translational research, and clinical applications in the field of cellular senescence, and aging-
and senescence-associated chronic diseases. With collaborators, she discovered the first senolytic
drugs that effectively eliminate senescent cells both in vitro and in vivo and demonstrated that
pharmacological targeting of these cells can alleviate age-related frailty and symptoms of multiple
diseases. Some of these drugs have already been tested in clinical trials for various indications at
different centers in the US and worldwide. Dr. Tchkonia is one of the four co-inventors of a mouse
model where senescent cells can be removed selectively and a named inventor on multiple patent
applications related to therapeutic approaches for targeting senescent cells in aging and disease.
Dr. Tamar Tchkonia received her Master’s degree from Tbilisi State University and her Ph.D. degree
in molecular biology from the Institute of Molecular Biology, Moscow Russia. She was a Docent at
Tbilisi State University and an invited lecturer at Tbilisi State Medical University. After two
years of postdoctoral training at the Boston University Medical Center, Dr. Tchkonia joined the
faculty at the Evans Biomedical Research Center at Boston University. Since 2007 Tamar has been an
active member of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at Mayo Clinic and a steering committee
member of the annual meeting series organized by the Alliance for Healthy Aging.
Stefan G. Tullius, MD, PhD, Joseph E. Murray, MD Distinguished Chair in Transplant Surgery is Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Transplant Surgery, and Director of the Transplant Surgery Research Laboratory at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston. He is also an Executive Editor, Transplantation, and Vice-President of The Transplantation Society. He leads a productive NIH-funded research lab that focuses on immunosenescence and organ rejuvenation. Dr. Tullius serves and has served on the Board of several societies including The European Society of Organ Transplantation (ESOT), TTS, UNOS, and the National Kidney Registry and has chaired and co-chaired committees of those societies including the Basic Science Committees for TTS, the American Society of Transplantation (AST), and ESOT.
Dr. von Zglinicki is a founding member of the basic biology branch of the Newcastle Ageing Institute and was its scientific director from 2014 to 2019. His principal research interest is in understanding the cellular and molecular signaling pathways connecting DNA damage responses (specifically emanating from dysfunctional telomeres) with mitochondrial function and metabolism, thus causing and maintaining cell senescence, and how these contribute to mammalian ageing. He was the first to discover oxidative stress and resulting DNA damage as a major cause of telomere shortening and to propose telomere length as a biomarker of ageing in humans. He found that senescent cells induce senescence in bystander cells, which might explain the long-term physiological and pathological consequences of short-term senescence-inducing treatments. He aims to prolong healthy lifespan in mammals and ultimately humans by interventions that selectively ablate senescent cells and/or suppress bystander signaling. In 2017 he received the Lord Cohen of Birkenhead Medal for Services to Gerontology. He published about 300 papers on cell and molecular biology of ageing, resulting in an h-index of 89 (Google Scholar June 2022).
Vinal's primary research interests are focused on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease, with a particular focus on the role of cellular senescence in these pathologies.
I am a Research Associate and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology & Biomedical Engineering at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. My research involves understanding the role of mitochondrial dysfunction during cellular senescence and its role in the regulation of the pro-inflammatory secretory phenotype of senescent cells. I am also interested in investigating therapeutic strategies targeting the mitochondria that might translate into therapies to improve age-related diseases.
Nathan LeBrasseur, PT, PhD, is a Professor and the Co-Chair of Research in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and has a joint appointment in the Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering at Mayo Clinic. Dr. LeBrasseur is the Director of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, the Co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research, and Scientific Director of the Office of Translation to Practice at Mayo Clinic. He is the current chair of the NIH Cellular Mechanisms in Aging and Development Study Section. Dr. LeBrasseur’s research team conducts translational “bench-to-bedside” research on strategies to improve physical function, metabolism, and resilience in the face of aging and disease. Dr. LeBrasseur has received the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging, the Nathan W. Shock Award Lecture from the National Institute on Aging, and the Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research from the American Federation for Aging Research. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.
Dr. Robbins is a Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics and Associate Director of the Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism (iBAM) and the Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Robbins received his B.A. from Haverford College, his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Mulligan at the Whitehead Institute at MIT. He was a Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Director of Basic Research for the Molecular Medicine Institute and Co-Director of the Paul Wellstone Cooperative Muscular Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He then was a Professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida and Director of the Center on Aging prior to moving to the University of Minnesota.
He was one of the first to identify enhancer elements that regulate transcription at a distance, the first to show that the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor regulates transcription and the first to develop gene therapies for autoimmune disease including an ongoing clinical trial for osteoarthritis. More recently, he was part of a collaborative team that was the first to identify senotherapeutic compounds, able to reduce the senescent cell burden and extend healthspan and lifespan in mouse models, that are in more than 15 clinical trials for age related diseases and conditions.
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