What inspired you to pursue aging research?
Healthy aging is a universal pursuit of humanity. Among life science areas, aging research stands out with unique significance as it impacts life and dignity for all. As a life scientist, I am drawn to aging research by its significance, as well as by its intriguing mysteries and challenges.
In your view, what does AFAR mean to the field, and what does it mean, for you, to receive an AFAR grant now?
AFAR has long represented a pioneering force in fostering aging research, especially by enabling and nurturing new researchers in this area. To me and many other biologists, receiving an AFAR grant allows us to translate our knowledge, skills, and inventions from other areas to aging research, and to be connected with fellow innovators who share the same passion and visions.
What is exciting about your research’s potential impact?
Our work will generate a tissue-level “regulatome” of cell-cell communication and interactions in the native aging tissue context, and an unparalleled resource of rich hypotheses to delineate the key regulatory steps that underpin aging. Our platform will be broadly applicable in different aging tissue types to uncover anti-aging biomarkers and regulators. In the long term, we aim to develop new anti-aging/pro-healthy-aging treatment strategies by targeting novel regulators.
How would you describe your research to a non-scientist?
Intricate cell-cell communications underlie tissue aging. Yet it is largely unknown how the cell-cell communication patterns are regulated in the native aging tissue setting, due to a lack of efficient research techniques. This study will invent a new methodology that will enable efficient discovery of genes that mediate cell-cell communications in aging tissue, which will help uncover new therapeutic targets for anti-aging/pro-healthy-aging treatment.
