February 12 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Seminar held in person only.
Dr. Ryo Sanabria
Assistant Professor of Gerontology
University of Southern California
“More than a loading control: studying the actin cytoskeleton for novel anti-aging interventions.”
The Sanabria lab studies the intersection between stress and aging, specifically at the cellular level by investigating what happens to organelles during stress and aging. The actin cytoskeleton is our major focus of study. The cytoskeleton is made up of numerous actin monomers that are polymerized together into cables, branches, and other complex structures that play important roles in providing structural support to the cell, trafficking of intracellular components, and cell division. Our lab aims to define actin cytoskeletal dysfunction as a new fundamental biological hallmark of aging. Branching out from actin, we then focus on the impact of actin health on other organelles, such as the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, and the nucleus. We then leverage our expertise on the actin cytoskeleton, organelle homeostasis, and stress response to navigate through uncharted territory: creation of a brand-new model system for aging: tardigrades. Tardigrades are hydrophilous microinvertebrates with unmatched resistance to thermal stress, cold stress, and desiccation, among other stressors. Our lab is developing new techniques that would allow us to synchronize and age tardigrades, map out the transcriptional, biological, and physiological aging hallmarks of tardigrades, and develop novel stress resilience assays to determine how aging impacts tardigrade stress resilience. Finally, we leverage our model organism studies to then translate some of our findings to identify druggable targets for cancer, cellular senescence, and other age-related diseases.