What do disparate diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer have in common? Aging is the number one risk factor for all these disorders, which means that the likelihood of developing an age-related disease increases simply due to your age. Several cell and molecular changes occur with the aging process that increase susceptibility to disease, such as increased protein misfolding, a decline in mitochondrial function, and increased genomic instability.

For example, we have clearly observed that COVID-19 disproportionately increases mortality in people over the age of 65, likely due to age-related changes in the immune system.

My lab uses the microscopic nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to study the basic biological processes of aging. It was first demonstrated in C. elegans that genes can directly influence how long an organism lives and it was the first organism to have its genome completely sequenced. The nematode is also completely transparent, allowing the use of fluorescent probes to study cellular changes in vivo.