International School

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The International School
"Mechanisms of Aging and Age-Related Diseases"

General Information

The international school "Mechanisms of Aging and Age-Related Diseases" will be held at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology from September 30 to October 3, 2018. It is an extension of the conference “Biomembranes 2018”, intended for education in science of aging process.

At the present time, process of human aging attracts a heightened interest. The understanding of the causes of aging became available for scientific study due to accumulation of necessary knowledge and emergence of sensitive research methods. Increase in number of elderly citizens makes it necessary to search for interventions to extend the life without age-related diseases.

The study of the mechanisms of aging is a complex, multilevel task. Gerontology includes different sections of biology, physiology, medicine, chemistry, raises the questions of fundamental science, has practical applications. The Research Center of Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-Related Diseases was created in 2015 at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, widely known for its multidisciplinary, fundamental approach to solving complex problems.

"Mechanisms of Ageing and Age-Related Diseases" school will unite leading scientists from Russia, Italy, Germany. Lectures of school will be devoted to the review of the main theories of aging, mechanisms of developing of age-related diseases, bioinformatics research in the field. Mitochondrial, telomeric and epigenetic theories of aging will be considered in detail.

Lectures will be organized as detailed presentation intended for the widest range of listeners, will include discussion, answers to questions of school participants.

In the end, each participant will receive a certificate of passing the international school "Mechanisms of Ageing and Age-Related Diseases".

Registration is open for participation in school only, and for school and conference “Biomembranes 2018”.

Further, our international school will be held on a regular basis every two years.

List of Lecturers

Vladimir Anisimov

Vladimir Anisimov

N.N.Petrov Research Institute of Oncology, Russia

Sunday, September 30, 13:50 – 14:50

"Aging and age-related diseases"

Is there aging without diseases? Aging and so-called age-related diseases (cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancer, etc.) - are they causally connected? These issues have been the subject of hot discussions to date. Many representatives of the new wave of amateur gerontologists believe that the classification of aging as a disease will lead to the creation of new business models, to a more efficient allocation of resources ... Conventional medicine prolongs life expectancy by preventing death from age-related diseases. This increases the number of elderly patients. By contrast, anti-aging medicine will slow the aging and onset of age-related diseases. Slowing down of aging will lead to a reduction in the number of people with disabling cardiovascular and oncological diseases.
“Aging and disease are not synonymous. There are processes of aging and etiologies of disease. The relationship between the two are important, but not inevitable.”— N.W. Shock, 1961
"To distinguish between a disease and normal aging is the same as to try to separate an uncertain from an undefined." — Evans, 1988.
“Actionable classification of aging as a disease may lead to more efficient allocation of resources.” — A. Zhavoronkov, B. Bhullar, 2015

Alexey Golubev

Alexey Golubev

N.N.Petrov Research Institute of Oncology, Russia

Sunday, September 30, 14:55 – 15:55

"The main theories of the spans of life and aging must be mutually consistent"

The lecture will address the major theories of aging related to the different level of biologcal organization: molecular, cellular, organismal and populational. The pros and cons of the theories will be discussed with emphasis on relationships between aging and age-associated diseases

Olga Bocharova

Olga Bocharova

Shemyakin-Ovchinikov Institute of Bioorganical Chemistry RAS, Russia

Sunday, September 30, 16:25 – 17:25

"Mechanisms of Development, Problems of Early Diagnostics, Methods of Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases on the Example of Alzheimer's Disease"

The lecture is devoted to the neurodegenerative diseases development, problem of early diagnosis and methods of treatment. The lecture will be divided into three parts. The first is devoted to the protein misfolding diseases, a particular case of which are neuroenderic diseases. In the second part, special attention will be paid to Alzheimer's disease, criteria for diagnosis and treatment strategies. In the third part will talk about the theories of the Alzheimer's disease development and the molecular mechanism of its pathogenesis.

Claudio Franceschi

Claudio Franceschi

University of Bologna, Italy

Sunday, September 30, 17:30 – 18:30

"Inflammaging as a Conceptual Framework for Aging and Age-Related Diseases"

Vladimir Skulachev

Vladimir Skulachev

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Monday, October 1, 18:25 – 19:25

"Identification of the first genes involved in the aging and antiaging programs"

Leonid and Natalia Gavrilovy

Leonid and Natalia Gavrilovy

Center on Aging, NORC at the University of Chicago, USA

Monday, October 1, 19:30 – 20:30

"Biodemography of Aging and Longevity"

Biodemography of aging is a scientific approach based on using demographic data and methods for getting insights into biological mechanisms of aging.

Traditionally biodemographic studies are focused on studying and explaining three empirical observations:

  1. The Gompertz law of mortality (exponential growth of failure rate with age).
  2. The compensation law of mortality (mortality convergence at older ages).
  3. Late-life mortality deceleration and mortality plateaus (deviations from the Gompertz law to lower levels at older ages).

This lecture will discuss the most recent developments in biodemography of aging and new empirical challenges to existing aging theories, including the evolutionary theory of aging that explains senescence by a declining force of natural selection with age.

To read more, visit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4475490/

Joachim Altschmied

Joachim Altschmied

Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine, Germany

Tuesday, October 2, 18:25 – 19:25

"Telomerase – Not Only a «Nuclear Weapon»"

Telomerase has originally been described as the enzyme that counteracts telomere erosion, the shortening of the ends of chromosomes. This shortening occurs during every cell division due to the "end-replication-problem" and ultimately results in senescence and aging. Over the last decade, it has been realized that at least the catalytic subunit of Telomerase, Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (TERT) is not only present in the nucleus, but also in the mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell. These organelles have their own DNA, which, however - due to its circular topology - does not contain telomeres. We have created unique cellular and mouse models to investigate the role of mitochondrial TERT in aging and age-related diseases and ascribed new functions to the protein.

Yegor Yegorov

Yegor Yegorov

Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia

Tuesday, October 2, 19:30 – 20:30

"How to Treat Aging?"

Replace a body? Replace organs? Replace tissues? Replace cells? Replace telomeres? Replace mitochondria? Replace extracellular matrix? Replace tissue fluids?
Telomeropathies, senolytics, mitochondria-targeted anti-aging interventions.
Gene therapy, cellular therapy, transplantology, autophagy, mitophagy.
The management of inflammation as a key technology.

Boris Vanyushin

Boris Vanyushin

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Wednesday, October 3, 18:25 – 19:25

"Epigenetics and Aging"

Ageing is definitely genome reprogramming. It, in particular, is associated with rearrangements of DNA methylation pattern and chromatin remodeling. Practically the use of all known old and modern means (diet, antioxidants, peptides, hormones, vitamins and others) are more or less blind and only partial, very limited attempts to an efficient increase of lifespan. For more cardinal success in this field the radical genome reprogramming associated with the intelligent delicate gene addressed genome editing is needed. There is no life without proper DNA methylation in the cell.
DNA methylation is involved in the control of all genetical processes such as transcription, cell and sex differentiation, DNA replication, recombination, gene transpositions, DNA repair. Global genome (DNA) demethylation is a general biological ageing phenomenon. DNA methylation is more or less flexible process, guided by DNA itself, DNA-methyltransferase, SAM and structural organization of chromatin, modulated by hormones, some biologically active peptides and antioxidants.

Vladimir Chupin

Vladimir Chupin

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia

Wednesday, October 3, 19:30 – 20:30

"Lipid Peroxidation and Aging"

Lipid peroxidation is an important process which occurs constantly in living cells. Lipid peroxidation products are able to change cellular membrane structure and therefore affect its functional activity. In pathological situations, with the amount and the rate of appearance increase with age, lipid peroxidation leads to a lipid bilayer damage and as a consequence changes activity of ion channels and other membrane proteins in biological membranes of cells and organelles. This phenomenon as one of the known mechanisms of the early cells and the whole organism aging will be discussed.


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