What inspired you to pursue aging research?
Our development spans a highly orchestrated series of checks and balances. This allows a unicellular zygote to undergo a series of cellular divisions, branch out into different cell types, and form the various cells, tissues, and organs that constitutes each one of us. At its core, this developmental process is directed through well-defined biochemical and molecular changes.
Once in adulthood, our constituent cells face incremental damages that affects their function. Accumulation of this damage leads to cellular dysfunction and reduced efficiency of our organ systems. Collectively, this is a process that we understand as aging. My interest to pursue research in aging is to understand the molecular basis that leads to cellular dysfunction while we age. Understanding these processes will set a foundation to develop novel interventions which could sustain organ and tissue vitality throughout our lifespan.
In your view, what does AFAR mean to the field, and what does it mean, for you, to receive an AFAR grant now?
Funding provided by AFAR provides a unique opportunity for early career scientists like me to embark on novel research projects searching to promote healthy aging. As a recipient of this prestigious fellowship, I am provided a unique opportunity to apply my research expertise towards a high impact question. This will allow me to perform a novel research project and establish myself as an impactful aging scientist.
What is exciting about your research’s potential impact?
My research is exciting, as it takes a novel approach by using artificial intelligence to understand the molecular regulators that underlie muscle weakness in aging. Specifically, I am using neural networks to deconvolute which molecular regulators are driving changes in gene expression responsible for muscle atrophy in aging. This will provide new insight into which proteins and signaling pathways become perturbed during aging. Understanding this molecular dysfunction will greatly facilitate development of targeted therapeutic interventions aimed to revert this dysfunction to a healthy state.
How would you describe your research to a non-scientist?
As we age, we gradually lose muscle mass, and this makes us weaker. There are currently no medications to fix this age-related weakness, and the only remedies to delay its onset remain a healthy diet and active lifestyle. Recently, research in the lab I work in identified a protein that's presence directly contributes to muscle weakness in aging. My research will investigate the underlying factors that causes this protein to contribute to muscle weakness in aging.
