Metabolism & Basic Biology of Aging

This research focuses understanding cellular and molecular processes that contribute to age-related disease. This teams approach to the basic biology of aging gives prominence to the role of nutrition in regulating the underlying mechanisms that promote healthy aging and provide evidence-based approaches to offset the impact of disease burden and medical care costs. This emerging field of aging biology research, known as geroscience, guides the work of this directive and contribute to its goal of extending healthspan. These investigators study key processes implicated in age-related diseases including dietary components, physical activity, alterations in immune responses, intestinal homeostasis, the microbiome, increased cellular dysfunction and senescence. Complications of these processes include obesity, metabolic diseases, sarcopenia, frailty, cancer, and other age-related pathophysiology. The research will help determine the mechanistic and physiological roles of dietary components in tissues that regulate cellular aging and associated conditions. Investigators will use a translational approach developing from cells to humans to identify ways to reduce complications of aging, including obesity, metabolic diseases, sarcopenia, and liver cancer.