Event
BIOE Seminar: Aging and Senescence at single-cell resolution
Friday, April 12, 2024
9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
A. James Clark Hall, Room #2121
Gregg Duncan
gaduncan@umd.edu
Jude Phillips
Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins University
Aging and Senescence at single-cell resolution
Abstract
During aging, cells undergo numerous changes that limit their ability to maintain tissue and organismal homeostasis and repair. One such mechanism is the age-related accumulation of senescent cells. Senescence is a well-established driver of aging and is characterized by the upregulation of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, increased pro-inflammatory secretions, and characteristic changes in cell morphologies observed mainly in vitro. Although these senescence-associated changes are critical to our understanding of senescence across various cell types, it is limited. These limitations stem from the fact that 1) currently, there are no universal biomarkers of senescence, as many cell types do not exhibit uniform shifts in conventional biomarkers, 2) senescence is typically defined as a binary phenotype (senescent or not), and 3), it is unclear whether the age-associated accumulation of senescent cells is due to defective clearance, or whether cells from older adults are more prone to senescence. In my presentation, I will present recent developments on a new single-cell framework to identify and classify functional subtypes of senescence among aging dermal fibroblasts. Using a combination of experimental and computational approaches, we show that senescence is not a binary phenotype, but a collection of functional subtypes delineated based on morphologies and the differential expressions of protein-based biomarkers. I will highlight the role of cellular heterogeneity and the effect of age on the susceptibility to senescence induction. Through this work, we are trying to develop a better understanding of why we age differently, with the long-term goal of developing precision aging strategies to impact the health and longevity of aging individuals.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Jude Phillip is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, with secondary appointments in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Oncology and is a core member in the Institute for Nanobiotechnology (INBT) at Johns Hopkins University. He completed his B.Eng. degree at the City College of New York in Chemical Engineering, his PhD. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and his postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medicine. Currently, his lab studies biological ageing dynamics in the context of health and disease. He combines engineering approaches with translational aging and oncology research to develop strategies and technologies to probe aging and disease. A key goal of his work is to identify translatable mechanisms to modify ageing trajectories to drive heathy aging.
