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GEE Friday Seminar - Dr Nathan Woodling, Alzheimer’s Society Junior Fellow, IHA
11 June 2021, 3:00 pm–4:00 pm
Title: 'Healthy Ageing in the Brain: Distinct Genes for Distinct Cell Types'
Event Information
Open to
- UCL staff | UCL students | UCL alumni
Availability
- Yes
Organiser
-
Ashling Giblin
Location
-
Zoom---
Abstract: The past two decades of research on ageing have uncovered how mutations in single genes can extend healthy lifespan in evolutionarily diverse organisms. However, the individual cell types and downstream pathways mediating these effects are not fully known, especially in the nervous system where the effects of age are apparent in highly prevalent neurodegenerative diseases. In this talk, I will discuss my team’s work investigating neurons and glia, the two major cell types in the brain, using the fruit fly Drosophila as a model. We have explored how either neuron-specific or glia-specific modulation of distinct genes can extend healthy lifespan and protect against proteotoxic stressors that characterise many neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, I will discuss ongoing work to apply these results to models of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, the leading cause of death in the UK in recent years.
About the Speaker
Dr Nathan Woodling
Alzheimer’s Society Junior Fellow at Partridge Lab, UCL Institute of Healthy Aging
Nathan Woodling received his B.S. degree with highest honours in Biology and Neuroscience from Emory University, where he was awarded a Robert T Jones Scholarship to study at the University of St Andrews after his undergraduate degree. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, where his work focused on the roles played by microglia in mouse and cell culture models of Alzheimer’s disease. He moved to London to take on post-doctoral training under the supervision of Professor Dame Linda Partridge, where his work uncovered a role for glial cells, and particularly astrocytes, in modulating healthy lifespan and ageing. In 2019, he was awarded an Alzheimer’s Society Junior Fellowship to investigate the interaction between neurons and astrocytes both in the ageing process itself and in age-associated susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease.
More about Dr Nathan Woodling