Project description
The role of autophagy in ageing
Cells break down and recycle their own components, such as damaged organelles or misfolded proteins, through a process known as autophagy. As we age, the efficiency of autophagy declines, leading to the accumulation of cellular damage and contributing to the deterioration of tissues. By maintaining autophagy, it is thought that the ageing process can be slowed down, improving overall health and potentially extending lifespan. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the AutoGut project aims to investigate the association between autophagy and ageing. Researchers will employ fish as a model organism to study whether autophagy modulation in the intestine can revert age-related inflammation and how diet-microbiome interactions influence intestinal health and ageing.
Objective
Human life expectancy is continuously increasing worldwide. However, longer lives must be accompanied by the increased health of older people. Therefore, the scientific community has set a goal to understand the causes of aging and how to revert them, aiming not only at living longer but living healthier. With this proposal, using telomerase mutant zebrafish as a prematurely aging model, I aim to determine the interdependency between autophagy and aging. In particular, I will determine if modulation of autophagy can revert the causes of aging and improve organisms health span. Knowing that the intestine is one of the first organs that deteriorate during adulthood, I will alter autophagy specifically in the intestine to revert inflammatory and behavioral phenotypes of aged fish. Moreover, I will study specific diet-microbiome associations in the intestine that might affect intestinal integrity, autophagy, and organism aging. The outcome of this research will create high-quality new knowledge on the relationship between gut autophagy and individual aging and will provide guidelines for the development of new anti-aging approaches.
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
75794 Paris
France