25th of May, Tuesday, 2021, 2PM London -- Shiqing Cai, PhD, will present the latest research on the topic Two conserved epigenetic regulators prevent healthy ageing - at the worlds' largest annual Aging Research and Drug Discovery conference (8th ARDD). Dr Shiqing Cai is the Senior Investigator at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Shiqing Cai got his bachelor degree in1997 from China Agricultural University in Beijing?and received his Ph.D. degrees from Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology & Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2002. From 2004 to 2009, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Dr.Federico Sesti lab at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey. He joined ION in October 2009 as Principal Investigator and the Head of the Laboratory of Ion Channel Regulation. His major research interests are regulation of potassium channels and aging of the nervous system.
"Aging is accompanied with behavioral and cognitive decline. The neural basis of age-related behavioral decline is largely unclear. Through genome-wide RNA-interference-based screening of genes that regulate behavioural deterioration in ageing C. elegans, we identify 59 genes as potential ageing modulators. Among these modulators, two neuronal epigenetic readers BAZ-2 and SET-6 accelerate behavioural deterioration in C. elegans by reducing mitochondrial function, repressing the expression of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial proteins. The mechanism is conserved in cultured mouse neurons and human cells. Examination of human databases shows that expression of the human orthologues of these C. elegans regulators, BAZ2B and EHMT1, in the frontal cortex increases with age and correlates positively with the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Ablation of Baz2b, the mouse orthologue of BAZ-2, attenuates age-dependent bodyweight gain and prevents cognitive decline in ageing mice. Taken together, these findings have unravelled conserved neuronal mechanism underlying healthy ageing, suggesting possible ways to achieve healthy ageing." said Dr. Shiqing Cai, Senior Investigator at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences.