Our Focus Why the Biology of Healthspan Matters
We study the biology of healthspan, because we want to know what goes on at the biological (cellular) level as we age, and how it affects our overall health across the entire lifespan. One thing we know for certain is that “good stuff” like exercise improves healthspan, and we’re trying to determine if biological processes stimulated by exercise can help us understand other ways to improve healthspan (like nutrition, pharmaceuticals or genetics).
We are particularly interested in brain health across the lifespan, and in neuro-degenerative diseases that threaten healthy brain aging. To study this, we use a variety of translational techniques, including experiments in cells, C. elegans, mice and humans. We also do a lot of bioinformatics (computational biology), and one major project in the lab focuses on RNA metabolism and noncoding/repetitive RNAs in aging and neurodegeneration.
