Dr. Stefan Taubert recently received $818,000 from the Canadian Institute of Health Research to genetically map a stress response and pro-longevity network. Dr. Taubert is an Investigator and member of the Leadership Committee of the Edwin S.H. Leong Healthy Aging Program and an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia.
This new project will lead to important contributions in the field of geroscience, which seeks to understand the cellular and molecular changes that occur in the body with age. Aging is a risk factor for many diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s disease. In our body, damage accumulates in our cells as we age. These cellular changes are thought to be a key cause of age-related diseases and of aging itself. There are cellular processes, referred to as stress responses, that protect against this damage, and turning on these pathways may prevent aging and age-related diseases. Previous research by the Taubert Lab discovered a new cellular pathway that responds to stress and that can delay aging using C. elegans. C. elegans are small round worms that only live 20-30 days and that share many genes with humans, making them an ideal model for investigating aging and age-related diseases. The team also investigated this pathway in human cancer cells and found that there too it may protect cells from damaging cellular stress.
Now, with this new funding, Dr. Taubert’s lab will build on this previous work to map the genes that activate the stress response pathway they discovered. They will also find out which biological processes are activated by the new pathway to keep animals healthy as they age. Lastly, they will determine if the human analog of one of the worm genes protects human lung cancer cells from stress and whether blocking this pathway could therefore be used to destroy cancerous cells. The team anticipates that this research will identify new molecules that may be used to treat some age-related diseases, such as cancer.
Congratulations to the Taubert Lab!