Mitochondrial Abnormalities in Ageing and Age Related Diseases

Patient doing excerciseThis theme aims to:

  • Develop magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques to non-invasively measure mitochondrial function in skeletal muscle (and other tissues) from elderly subjects;
  • Establish the correlation between in vivo and in vitro measurements of mitochondrial function from elderly human tissues and identify factors that contribute to the decline in mitochondrial function in ageing and age related disease; and
  • Determine if interventions such as exercise and diet improves mitochondrial function and correlates with quality of life in elderly subjects.

Our work is closely related to the dementia and neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes and liver themes.  This work builds upon theoretical work on the biology of ageing, in order to understand the dynamics of mtDNA mutation accumulation, and has important links with the basic ageing programme in the Centre for Integrated Systems Biology in Ageing and Nutrition (CISBAN)

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