What inspired you to pursue aging research?
Thanks to significant advancements in the field of life sciences, global life expectancy has doubled over the past decade. However, these achievements have also introduced new challenging issues such as aging and age-related disorders. Presently, the spotlight is on enhancing the quality of life during the later stages of life. I am personally dedicated to aging research, with a particular focus on comprehending the mechanisms behind human exceptional longevity. My passion drives me to develop interventions mimicking longevity-associated impact that may extend healthspan.
In your view, what does AFAR mean to the field, and what does it mean, for you, to receive an AFAR grant now?
AFAR plays a pivotal role by fostering innovation, collaboration, and funding in aging field. Receiving an AFAR grant would not only provide essential financial support for my research but also serve as a validation of the significance and potential impact of my work. It encourages me to keep working on challenging but meaningful studies. Moreover, the recognition from such a prestigious organization would help the connection with other researchers, enabling valuable knowledge exchange and potential collaborations.
What is exciting about your research’s potential impact?
The ultimate impact of this work lies in its potential to reveal fundamental mechanisms of human exceptional longevity and to identify novel therapeutic to promote healthspan in humans.
How would you describe your research to a non-scientist?
Centenarians who generally have a significantly higher proportion of individuals free of aging-associated diseases hold the key to access longevity. Can we extract valuable lessons from centenarians to promote human healthy aging? By decoding their genomes, majority of the genetic variations were found at non-coding regions which were once considered “Junk DNA” but now known to play crucial roles. We aim to establish the causality between these centenarian variants and human longevity. Specifically, we will identify causal variants and genes, reveal the underlying regulatory mechanism and test the impact of variants on lifespan and healthspan. By better understanding the genetic and molecular basis of human longevity, our study will facilitate drug target discovery for healthy aging.
