Awards for term Telomeres | The Ellison Medical Foundation

Telomeres

Dr. Steven T. Kosak Northwestern University Interaction of lamin A/C and telomeres in human embryonic stem cell fate 2010 New Scholar Award In Aging Nuclear function and nuclear organization are inextricably linked. The nucleoskeleton is a protein network that maintains the structural integrity of the nucleus and provides a framework for its functional organization. The intermediate filament lamin A/C is an integral component of the... >> MORE	Dr. Kazuko Nishikura Wistar Institute Editing of telomeric repeat RNAs and its role in control of telomere shortening 2009 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Telomeres are specialized structures present at the ends of all chromosomes and are essential for maintaining chromosome integrity; thus they have been implicated in mechanisms involved in aging. Telomeres contain a long stretch of DNA with a simple, repeated TTAGGG sequence (telomeric repeat or... >> MORE	Dr. Judith L. Campbell California Institute of Technology The Intersection of a Global Genome Integrity Network with Telomere Functions in Yeast and Human Cells 2008 Senior Scholar Award In Aging We have studied the role of genomic instability in the determination of lifespan in yeast as a model for replicative senescence in human cells. We recently defined a genetic network of 322 genes and 826 interactions that preserve genome stability during DNA replication. This network suggests that... >> MORE
Dr. Ronald A. DePinho Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School The Genetic Role of Telomere Dynamics and DNA Damage Response in Stem Cell Depletion, Organ Homeostasis and Aging 2003 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Telomeres are specialized capping structures on chromosomes that play important roles in aging, cancer and genome stability. Normal cells do not possess the specialized enzyme telomerase that functions to synthesize and maintain telomere length with each cell division. Thus, cell division is... >> MORE	Dr. Robert A. Weinberg Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research Cell Physiologic Stresses and Telomere-Based Cell Senescence 2003 Senior Scholar Award In Aging The biological processes that cause human aging are complex and remain poorly understood. Two general mechanisms have been proposed to explain the aging of human tissue. The first postulates that aging is caused by the accumulated damage that cells within our tissues sustain due to various... >> MORE	Dr. Stanley N. Cohen Stanford University School of Medicine Genetic Mechanisms Regulating Replicative Aging in Diffierentiated Human Cell Populations 2002 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Normal human cells growing outside the body in culture media have a finite ability to reproduce. An internal "clock" forces them eventually to stop dividing and enter an irreversible state of proliferative arrest termed "replicative senescence" (RS). There is evidence that RS represents aging at... >> MORE
Dr. Woodring E. Wright University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Functional Tests of Replicative Aging in Organotypic Skin Equivalents 2002 Senior Scholar Award In Aging One of the major functions of cellular senescence is to serve as a brake against malignancy. At least 3-6 mutations are required to form a tumor. Each mutation probably requires 20-30 doublings for the initial mutation, elimination of the remaining wild-type allele (for recessive tumor... >> MORE	Dr. Victoria Lundblad Salk Institute for Biological Studies Translating Yeast Telomere Biology to Human Cells: Identification of Activities that Regulate Human Telomere Maintenance and Cellular Proliferation 2001 Senior Scholar Award In Aging The telomeric caps at the ends of chromosomes are essential for maintaining the integrity of eukaryotic genomes. Two processes must be fully operational in order to prevent telomere dysfunction: chromosome ends need to be fully replicated and these termini also need to be protected from the... >> MORE	Dr. Jack D. Griffith University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Telomere Looping and Control of Cell Aging 2000 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Our research has focused on the long range remodeling of DNA as it undergoes replication, recombination, and repair. Such topics remain one of the most difficult areas to study using standard molecular tools but can be approached by direct electron microscopic (EM) visualization. Telomeres are... >> MORE
Dr. Titia de Lange Rockefeller University The Role of T-loops in Aging of Human Cells 1999 Senior Scholar Award In Aging In collaboration with Jack Griffith (UNC) we have found that human telomeres form large duplex loops (t-loops). We propose that t-loops represent the mechanism by which telomere ends are masked from the cellular machinery that detects DNA breaks. Our working hypothesis is that telomere shortening... >> MORE	Dr. Judith Campisi Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Telomeres, Cell Phenotype and Aging 1998 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Telomeres are structures composed of a specific DNA sequence and specialized proteins that cap the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres stabilize the chromosome, and thus ensure that the genome is maintained in a normal, stable state. Normal human cells lose a small amount of telomeric DNA each time... >> MORE	Dr. Stephen J. Elledge Baylor College of Medicine Connections Between the Telomere Sensing and DNA Damage Accumulation 1998 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Dr. Elledge has an interesting hypothesis that could unify the telomere and DNA damage theories of cell senescence. He will study the regulation of the ARF1 gene over time, and its interaction with DNA damage, to cause cell senescence. >> MORE
Dr. Carol W. Greider Johns Hopkins University The roles of recombination and telomerase in telomere maintenance 1998 Senior Scholar Award In Aging We are interested in understanding how cells maintain their chromosomes, the structures that transmit genetic information. Specifically, we are interested in the ends of chromosomes, known as telomeres. Telomeres are specialized structures that are essential for the chromosomes maintenance. When... >> MORE	Dr. Jerry W Shay University of Texas Southwest Medical Center Role of telomeres and telomerase in human aging 1998 Senior Scholar Award In Aging Telomere length appears to be critically involved in cellular senescence and in cellular immortality. Telomerase shortening results in cellular senescence, while stabilization of telomere length results in cellular immortality and cancer. Regulation of telomere length is usually, but not always,... >> MORE	Dr. Ahmet Yildiz University of California - Berkeley Understanding the Role of Functional Telomere Structure in Aging by Single Molecule Imaging 2009 New Scholar Award In Aging Telomeric tracts shorten upon each cell division and critically short telomeres eventually trigger cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Therefore, telomere length limits how many times human somatic cells can replicate and determines the lifespan of tissues. One way to circumvent aging in tissues is... >> MORE
Dr. Utz Herbig University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Telomere Dysfunction Induced Senescence in Aging Primates 2007 New Scholar Award In Aging Human aging is associated by a progressive loss of tissue structure and function however, the cause of tissue degeneration remains poorly understood. One model that might partly explain the functional decline of various organ systems with increasing age is that cells essential for tissue function... >> MORE	Dr. Emmanuel Skordalakes Wistar Institute Molecular Basis for Telomere Replication 2007 New Scholar Award In Aging The enzyme telomerase, which replicates telomeres, is thought to be key to cellular immortality. Telomere shortening leads to cellular aging, a process that can be reversed by restoration of the telomeric structure. Meanwhile, up to 90% of human tumor cells show high levels of telomerase activity... >> MORE	Dr. Patricia L. Opresko University of Pittsburgh Molecular Mechanisms of Telomeric DNA Instability Associated with the Human Progeroid Werner Syndrome 2006 New Scholar Award In Aging Maintenance of the genome is critical for the survival and health of an organism. Genomic mutations and alterations promote cancer, and the incidence of cancer increases exponentially with age. My lab is investigating the mechanisms of genomic instability associated with aging and diseases... >> MORE
Dr. Michael H. Brodsky University of Massachusetts Medical School Epigenetic Regulation of Drosophila Telomere Protection 2004 New Scholar Award In Aging Telomeres are protein-DNA structures that prevent the termini of chromosomes from being recognized as DNA damage-induced chromosome breaks. Telomere maintenance has been proposed to play a central role in human aging by limiting the replicative potential of somatic cell populations and... >> MORE	Dr. Dominique Broccoli Fox Chase Cancer Center Molecular Mechanisms of Telomere Dependent Senescence 1999 New Scholar Award In Aging Telomeres are specialized structures at the ends of chromosomes that are essential for stability. They are composed of several thousand base pairs of a repeating DNA sequence, (TTAGGG), and proteins that bind specifically to this sequence. In human cells, telomeric DNA is lost each time the cell... >> MORE	Dr. Katrin Chua Stanford University Function and regulation of SIRT6 in telomeric and genome-wide chromatin modulation 2008 New Scholar Award In Aging Fully stretched out, the DNA in each mammalian cell extends roughly six feet in length. To fit within the confines of a cell, this DNA is wound around specialized proteins and thereby condensed into a compact form called chromatin. The structure of chromatin is tightly regulated to modulate... >> MORE
Dr. Vera Gorbunova University of Rochester Effect of Aging on Efficiency and Accuracy of DNA Double-Strand Break Repair 2003 New Scholar Award In Aging Aging cells and tissues accumulate point mutations and genomic rearrangements, consistent with a failing ability to defend their genomes against DNA damage. Rearrangements result primarily from errors in repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs), which arise commonly by breakage of replication forks... >> MORE