IGM Ageing Research
Work on ageing in the Institute has a particular emphasis on the genetic mechanisms that lead to cardiovascular disease in later life and on the effects of mutations in mitochondrial DNA on the ageing process and susceptibility to chronic disease. We also work more broadly on the genetics behind longevity and are looking at how aspirin might protect older people from colon cancer.
Our Director, Professor Patrick Chinnery, is also the Director of the NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre for Ageing and Chronic Diseases.
The staff listed below are involved in age-related research in the following areas:
- Dr Lyle Armstrong - understanding the epigenetic control of stem cell differentiation and the molecular mechanism behind the ageing process using cellular reprogramming.
- Prof Sir John Burn - cancer prevention research addressing simple and cheap methods to prevent colorectal cancer, one of the major causes of death and disability in old age. The different responses of the colon to aspirin in the old compared to younger people will be a focus for future research as part of the cancer prevention programme CAPP.
- Dr Bill Chaudhry and Prof Deborah Henderson - cardiomyocyte turnover in the normal and cardiomyopathic zebrafish heart and developmental origins of late onset vascular pathologies.
- Prof Patrick Chinnery – the role of mitochondria in ageing and age-related chronic disease.
- Prof Heather Cordell - analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) data to determine genetic predictors of longevity and related phenotypes.
- Dr Joanna Elson - the mechanism by which a single somatic mutation can come to dominate a cell's mtDNA population. The spectrum of somatic mtDNA mutations seen in ageing cells, and their effect on cellular function, as well as how this mutational spectrum differs in different cells types.
- Dr Rita Horvath - investigation of late-onset inherited neurodegenerative diseases.
- Prof Bernard Keavney - atherosclerosis, its risk factors, high blood pressure and obesity, congenital heart disease in children and heart muscle function in extreme old age.
- Prof Majlinda Lako - application of pluripotent stem cells to understand, model and treat age related diseases.
- Dr Andrew Owens - cardiac fibrosis and its association with atrial fibrillation in the aging heart.
- Professor Ioakim Spyridopoulos - how ageing of stem cells and the immune system affect cardiovascular disease.
