Description

Aging is a major risk factor for the development of organ dysfunction and disease. Although under debate, there exists a strong association between decline in stem cell function, possibly impinging on the selection of mutant stem cells, impairments in tissue maintenance and disease development during aging. The JAM will discuss basic concepts and therapeutic targets on the causes and consequences of stem cell during organism aging.

Principal themes and objectives of the meeting

The JAM fosters interaction of researchers engaged in the study of basic principles of stem cell and tissue maintenance in aging. The meeting will focus on basic molecular and genetic processes that affect genetic and epigenetic stability, protein homeostasis and metabolic processes - thereby impairing the functionality and self-renewal of stem cells and organ maintenance.

The main aim of the JAM is to increase our understanding of organism aging.

Sessions

• Mitochondria and Protein Homeostasis
• Systemic and Niche Factors
• Epigenetics, DNA Damage, Genome Integrity
• Stem Cells and Regeneration
• Interventions

Tentative List of Speakers:

Keynote Speakers

Andrew Dillin, University of California, Berkeley, USA

His lab focuses on why an aging organism loses control over the integrity of its proteome with the aim to uncover new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of age-related pathologies.

Vera Gorbunova, University of Rochester, Department of Biology, Rochester, USA

Her lab focuses on the role of Sirtuin signaling in Aging. She works on long-lived rodents and cross species gene replacements to identify longevity mechanisms.

Manuel Serrano, Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain

His lab focuses on the role of epigenetic reprogramming in tissue regeneration and on the development of strategies for the elimination of senescent cells in order to prevent cancer growth and tissue destruction.

Speakers

Andrea Ablasser, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Her lab focuses on the innate immune system and has contributed fundamental discoveries in elucidating the mechanisms of immunorecognition of DNA by the cGAS-signaling pathway.

Anne Bertolotti, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK

Her lab focuses on mechanisms that govern the deposition of misfolding-prone proteins and their accumulation in aged cells with the aim to identify strategies that could reduce the burden of misfolded proteins for cells and organisms.

Paul Frenette, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA

His lab focuses on how hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and mature blood cells traffic in vivo. He has uncovered a key role for the peripheral nervous system in the HSC niche regulating HSC trafficking and identified nerve aging as a contributing factor to HSC aging.

David J. Glass, Novartis, Basel, Switzerland

He provided groundbreaking work on the role of metabolic pathways in driving the functional decline of muscle stem cells during aging.

Florian Heidel, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany

He works on hematopoietic stem cell aging, especially on the question how this leads to the selection of aberrant stem cell clones and leukemia formation.

Heinrich Jasper, The Buck Institute for Research on Aging, San Francisco, USA

His lab focuses on stress and inflammatory pathways that influence tissue homeostasis and has contributed fundamental discoveries on how age-related dysfunction of somatic stem cells perturbs regeneration in barrier epithelia.

Pankaj Kapahi, The Buck Institute for Research on Aging, San Francisco, USA

He investigates how organisms respond to nutrient status and how this influences health and disease. His lab uses different model organisms to investigate how various physiological and molecular processes, including fat metabolism, circadian clocks, advanced glycation end products, calcification, and intestinal permeability, are influenced by nutrients to impact organismal health and survival.

Pekka Katajisto, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

His lab studies how stem cell intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms alter tissue renewal capacity in aging with particular focuses on the intestinal stem cells niche and the interplay between cellular metabolism and stem cell fate.

James L. Kirkland, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA

His lab focuses on the impact of cellular aging (senescence) on age-related dysfunction and chronic diseases, with the aim of developing therapies for removing these cells and alleviating their effects.

William Lowry, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

He investigates metabolic control of skin stem cells and how these circuits can affect hair growth and skin stem cell maintenance and function during aging.

Emi Nishimura, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan

She has developed new insides into delineating different lineages of skin stem cells and the role of quiescence in regulating the sensitivity of skin stem cells to DNA damage. Her work provided the first experimental evidence that DNA damage can lead to removal of melanocyte stem cells by inducing differentiation.

Thomas Rando, Stanford University, San Francisco, USA

He is a pioneer of research on muscle stem cell aging. He identified experimental evidence for systemic acting factors in blood circulation that influence aging in heterochronic parabiosis in mice.

Michael Ristow, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

He has provided groundbreaking work on the role of oxidative stress in triggering hormesis response that elongate survival in C. elegans.

Hans-Willem Snoeck, Columbia University, New York, USA

His work provides experimental evidence for a novel role of mitochondria in regulating Calcium homeostasis in hematopoietic stem cells.

Aleksandra Trifunovic, CECAD Research Center, Cologne, Germany

Her lab studies the role of mitochondria in the determination of longevity with a particular focus on the impact of accumulation of mutations in mitochondrial DNA.

Claudia Waskow, Leibniz Institute on Aging - Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), Jena, Germany

Her lab has a long-standing interest in developing humanized mouse models to study the biology of human hematopoietic stem cell aging in an experimental in vivo system. She has identified new mechanisms of lineage development in hematopoietic system during embryogenesis.