Presenter: Dario Valenzano, Ph.D., Max Planck Research Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany
Title: “The short-lived African Turquoise Killifish sheds light on the basis of vertebrate aging”
Short Bio: Dario Riccardo Valenzano is a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany. He studied Neuroscience in Italy with Dr. Alessandro Cellerino, and after a postdoc at Stanford University in the laboratory of Dr. Anne Brunet, in 2013 he established his research group in Cologne. His research is focused on understanding how evolution shapes life history traits (development, sexual maturation, aging) in vertebrates and how ageing and longevity affect fitness in wild populations. He recently started to investigate what is the impact of the commensal gut microbial community structure on the host’s metabolism and he is developing strategies to modulate the host’s aging process targeting the gut microbiota. His main model system is the naturally short-lived turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri), which he started to develop as a novel model organism during his graduate school. He devotes his time doing computational work and supervising scientific projects in his lab in Cologne, and once a year he conducts fieldwork in the African savannah, where he studies his favorite fish in their natural habitat.
1:00 pm
The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine Leo Holt Conference Room
Host: Dr. Duygu Ucar
For more information, contact: Shivana Singh at shivana.singh@jax.org