Hundreds of scientists gather in San Diego and virtually to share knowledge on the science of aging

For scientists in San Diego and across the United States, March 6-7, 2024, is an important time to talk about developments in aging research. To kick off two scientific meetings on the subject, the NIH-funded San Diego Nathan Shock Center, a collaboration among the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys and the University of California San Diego, will host its 2024 symposium focused on the center’s primary research area, “The Heterogeneity of Aging,” on Wednesday, March 6 at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the Conrad T. Prebys Auditorium in La Jolla.

Just as people and organisms age at different rates, scientists have demonstrated that tissues also age at their own speeds – even some cells within tissues age at a unique pace. This phenomenon, known as heterogeneity of aging, is of great interest to researchers as it may hold clues for how to develop interventions that enable people to lead healthier lives as they age. to discuss this topic.

Caroline Kumsta, PhD, assistant professor in the Development, Aging and Regeneration Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys and associate dean of student affairs of the Institute’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, will speak at the 2024 symposium about heterogeneity of aging within the process cells use to recycle or dispose of damaged DNA and other waste products. Kumsta recently coauthored a manuscript in Nature Aging that found new functions for genes involved in this waste management process, known as autophagy. Gaining a better understanding of autophagy is important as scientists have demonstrated that autophagy genes are responsible for prolonged life span in a variety of long-lived organisms. Kumsta received a pilot award from the San Diego Nathan Shock Center in 2022 to support her research on the subject.

“We’re excited to once again offer the La Jolla Aging Meeting on the next day, as we have found that many people like to attend both, and that both meetings help each other,” says Alessandra Sacco, PhD, cohost of both events, director of and professor in the Development, Aging and Regeneration Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, and dean of the Institute’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

The 7^th annual La Jolla Aging Meeting will be held on Thursday, March 7, also in Salk’s Conrad T. Prebys Auditorium. The meeting was organized by Sacco and Peter Adams, PhD, director of and professor in the Cancer Genome and Epigenetics Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, and by Jan Karlseder, PhD, Donald and Darlene Shiley Chair, senior vice president and chief science officer at the Salk Institute. The event features mostly short talks from San Diego-based postdoctoral fellows and students researching the biology of aging. The meeting’s goal is to enable participants to meet other researchers and start new collaborations.

“The La Jolla Aging Meeting has more of a focus on early career development, so the events complement each other very well,” adds Sacco.

Three members of Sanford Burnham Prebys will be presenting at the La Jolla Aging Meeting, including Xiao Tian, PhD, who recently joined the Institute as an assistant professor in the Degenerative Diseases Program. Tian focuses on epigenomic changes and deterioration that influence age-related diseases by studying the remarkable traits of naked mole rats: They rarely get cancer. They are resistant to some types of pain. They can survive up to 18 minutes without oxygen. And compared to their rodent peers, naked mole rats age very slowly. Tian’s goal is to unravel the molecular basis of aging and develop strategies to promote a healthier, more vital lifespan.

Last year, more than 400 academics, students and trainees at every career stage gathered in person and virtually from 20 states and several countries to participate in the San Diego Nathan Shock Center “The Heterogeneity of Aging” Symposium and the La Jolla Aging Meeting.

About the San Diego Nathan Shock Center
The San Diego Nathan Shock Center (SD-NSC), led by Gerald Shadel, PhD, Audrey Geisel Chair in Biomedical Science and professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, was established in the fall of 2020 with the overall goal of understanding the heterogeneity of aging in order to allow development of personalized interventions to increase the number of years of healthy life. To this end, the center provides three novel scientific Research Resource Cores to develop new human cell models of aging and enable the integrated analysis of molecular, cellular and tissue heterogeneity. The SD-NSC also supports and advocates basic biology of aging research in general through the development, training and mentoring activities of a Research Development Core and robust outreach efforts. All of these activities are accomplished via a consortium of three premier research institutions on the La Jolla Research Mesa: the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys and the University of California San Diego.

Alessandra Sacco serves as director of the SD-NSC Research Development Core and Peter Adams serves as codirector of the SD-NSC Heterogeneity of Aging Core.

Aging research is always timely, and here’s a date: On March 6, the San Diego Nathan Shock Center, a consortium of Sanford Burnham Prebys, Salk and UC San Diego, will hold its second annual Symposium on the Heterogeneity of Aging at the Salk Institute.

The day-long, hybrid program will include scientific presentations from a diverse group of researchers focused on the biology and secrets of aging, including Caroline Kumsta, PhD, co-author of a recently published paper that revealed possible novel functions for various autophagy genes, which may control different forms of disposal including misfolded proteins — and ultimately affect aging.

For more information about the symposium and to register, click here.

Professors Peter Adams, PhD, and Malene Hansen, PhD, of Sanford Burnham Prebys will lead key research and development cores

Sanford Burnham Prebys researchers are joining forces with University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and the Salk Institute to form a world-class San Diego Nathan Shock Center (SD-NSC), a consortium established to study cellular and tissue aging in humans. The center will be funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and is expected to receive $5 million over the next two years.

Professors Peter Adams, Ph.D., and Malene Hansen, PhD, of Sanford Burnham Prebys will lead key research and development cores, along with Professors Rusty Gage, PhD, Martin Hetzer, PhD, and Tatyana Sharpee, PhD, of Salk; and Anthony Molina, PhD, of UC San Diego. Salk Professor Gerald Shadel, PhD, will be the director of the SD-NSC.

“This is a special opportunity for San Diego’s aging research community to share our ideas, skills and technologies to drive innovative research in the basic biology of aging,” says Adams. “We are grateful for this support and will work to create the strongest environment possible to achieve meaningful breakthroughs that will benefit human health.”

Aging is the most significant risk factor for human disease. Human cells and tissues age at different rates depending on their intrinsic properties, where they are in the body and environment exposures. Yet, scientists do not fully understand this variability (“heterogeneity”) and how it contributes to overall human aging, risk for disease or therapeutic responses.

To explore the complex heterogeneity of human aging, the SD-NSC will deploy three cutting-edge Research Resource Cores, including the Human Cell Models of Aging Core, to be led by Gage and Molina; the Heterogeneity of Aging Core, to be led by Hetzer and Adams; and the Integrative Models of Aging Core, to be led by Sharpee.

The cores will allow detailed analysis of human cells and organoids (artificially grown clusters of cells that model tissues), derived from a unique aging cohort at UC San Diego that is annotated for multiple measures of the actual biological age of individuals. In addition, the cores will provide scientific services to the Nathan Shock Centers network and the aging research community at large, including the dissemination of samples, protocols and computational tools to facilitate the study of heterogeneity in aging.

A Research Development Core headed by Hansen will also be established to encourage and support new investigators to enter the field of aging research. Through this core, the SD-NSC will provide pilot research grants, workshops and customized mentoring programs to promote the research and development of young investigators, as well as in-person and virtual trainings to spur collaboration and the sharing of knowledge related to the basic biology of aging.

“For years, my colleagues and I have been organizing successful symposia such as the annual La Jolla Aging Meeting (LJAM), where we share new aging research and discuss opportunities for collaboration,” says Hansen, who also hold the positions of associate dean for Student Affairs and faculty adviser for Postdoctoral Training at Sanford Burnham Prebys. “The San Diego Nathan Shock Center will enable us to broaden the reach and impact of LJAM, as well as take training and mentoring of the next generation of researchers to a new level.”

The SD-NSC builds on Sanford Burnham Prebys’ strengths in fundamental aging research, renowned for its use of model organisms to unravel cell changes associated with normal development and aging. By building, analyzing and probing models of disease, scientists in the Institute’s Aging, Development and Regeneration Program are providing new tools to uncover novel therapeutic targets for heart disease, neurodegeneration, muscle disorders, diabetes, cancer and other debilitating diseases.

The SD-NSC will be one of a network of eight Nathan Shock Centers nationwide, and is funded by NIA grant number P30AG068635.

“Excellent presentation!”

“We should connect—we have more samples coming soon.” 

“Feel free to reach out, we’re looking to partner so I’d love to hear more about your research.”

These exchanges, overheard at the 3rd annual La Jolla Aging Meeting held on March 29, 2019, at the Salk Institute, illustrate the importance of uniting scientists focused on a common goal: In this case, uncovering the root causes of aging. 

As in previous years, the 2019 meeting was co-organized by Sanford Burnham Prebys’ Malene Hansen, PhD, and Peter Adams, PhD; and Salk’s Jan Karlseder, PhD A key goal of the event is to feature research by local scientists studying the molecular mechanisms of aging, while fostering connections and building relationships that advance new discoveries. More than 200 researchers, primarily from the San Diego area, attended the meeting. 

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Aging is the main risk factor for many of the serious diseases our society faces today, including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s. As the U.S. population grows older due to the natural aging of the Baby-Boomer generation, the need to understand the underlying causes of aging becomes more urgent. The number of Americans who are age 65 or older is projected to double from nearly 48 million in 2015 to more than 90 million in 2060, according to the United States Census Bureau. 

The diversity of presentations given—from the role of supportive brain cells called astrocytes and cellular recycling (autophagy) to long-lived proteins in mitochondria (the cell’s power generator)—reflects the complexity of the field. A poster session was also held during the symposium, providing an opportunity for up-and-coming scientists to share their recent data. 

“It’s unlikely there will be any single factor responsible for aging,” says Matt Kaeberlein, PhD, professor at the University of Washington and the symposium’s keynote speaker. “I am encouraged to see so many people interested in diverse aspects of aging biology at this symposium. By advancing each of these distinct research areas, and working together, we will make progress in understanding the underlying aging process.”

The full list of speakers follows. Make sure to save the date for next year’s meeting, which will be held on March 27, 2020. 

• Matt Kaeberlein, PhD, University of Washington (keynote) – New insights into mechanisms by which mTOR modulates metabolism, mitochondrial disease and aging
• Isabel Salas, PhD, Allen lab, Salk – Astrocytes in aging and Alzheimer’s disease
• David Sala Cano, PhD, Sacco lab, Sanford Burnham Prebys – The Stat3-Fam3a axis regulates skeletal muscle regenerative potential
• Tina Wang, Ideker lab, University of California, San Diego – A conserved epigenetic progression aligns dog and human age
• Rigo Cintron-Colon, Conti lab, Scripps Research – Identifying the molecules that regulate temperature during calorie restriction
• Nan Hao, PhD, University of California, San Diego – Programmed fate bifurcation during cellular aging
• Shefali Krishna, PhD, Hetzer lab, Salk – Long-lived proteins in the mitochondria and their role in aging
• Sal Loguercio, PhD, Balch lab, Scripps Research – Tracking aging with spatial profiling
• Alva Sainz, Shadel lab, Salk – Cytoplasmic mtDNA-mediated inflammatory signaling in cellular aging
• Anthony Molina, PhD, University of California, San Diego – Mitochondrial bioenergetics and healthy aging: Advancing precision healthcare for older adults
• Alice Chen, Cravatt lab, Scripps Research – Pharmacological convergence reveals a lipid pathway that regulates C. elegans lifespan
• Robert Radford, PhD, Karlseder lab, Salk – TIN2: Communicating telomere status to mitochondria in aging
• Jose Nieto-Torres, PhD, Hansen lab, Sanford Burnham Prebys – Regulating cellular recycling: role of LC3B phosphorylation in vesicle transport

Prizes for the best poster presentations were awarded to the following scientists: 

• Hsin-Kai Liao, PhD, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte’s lab, Salk  
• Yongzhi Yang, PhD, Malene Hansen’s lab, Sanford Burnham Prebys
• Tai Chalamarit, Sandra Encalada’s lab, Scripps Research 

Thank you to our generous sponsor, the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, and to NanoString for donating the prizes received by the poster presenters.  

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