On 22 February at 2pm CET, Ulysseus Ageing and Well-being Innovation Hub, based at University Côte d’Azur, will host the webinar titled ”New ideas for the age-old problem of aging”. This webinar will be led by Eric Gilson, Director of the IRCAN (Institute for research on Cancer and Aging) who will give an overview on the latest developments in the field of Aging Biology.
Ulysseus European University is launching a brand new series of webinars on key regional and local challenges.
These are part of the calendar of activities of “COMPASS: Leading Ulysseus to become a European University excellence model through Research and Innovation”, a Horizon 2020 project of Ulysseus and the flagship for its R&I agenda and strategy.
Organised by Ulysseus Innovation Hubs, these webinars will bring together experts from academia, industry and NGO’s, among other organisations to discuss key regional and local challenges.
Although aging is a universal process, its biological mechanisms are still poorly understood. In the coming decades, our societies will face two seismic shifts: one demographic, with an increasing proportion of the human population reaching old age; the other environmental, with its effects on the biosphere. Both point to the importance of the mechanisms of aging in terms of social, political, and economic sustainability.
While human life expectancy is increasing worldwide, thanks to medical and socio-economic advances, the additional years of life gained are in fact often spent in poor to very poor health. Aging poses specific yet unresolved medical problems, as it is the primary risk factor for developing a broad spectrum of chronic diseases and cancers, all with massive social consequences.
Meanwhile, anthropic activities are profoundly modifying our ecosystems, significantly impacting the aging rate and conditions of living organisms, e.g., from corals to humans. Accelerated wildlife aging is a threat to biodiversity and to the sustainability of many natural resources. These changes in aging trajectories constitute a major challenge for the future of the planet and of humanity, calling for an innovative scientific approach to finding lasting solutions.
The current advances in the emerging field of aging biology are impressive. They will certainly be the cause of medical revolutions in the coming decade that will bring about increases in healthy life expectancy and its attendant impacts on public health, on social life, on the economy, and on the ethical frameworks of our society.
They will increase our understanding of the aging trajectories in wild living organisms, creating opportunities for new strategies of ecosystem preservation. However, research efforts in aging biology remain highly compartmentalized, dispersed and are mostly still emerging in France in comparison with other developed countries.
In particular, although several aging biological hallmarks have been identified, very little is known about the time-dependent mechanisms that orchestrate their appearance, intensity, organ-specificity, and consequences. How do they start? How do they progress? What is their frequency across populations and population groups? Do programmed aging clocks exist to orchestrate their temporal appearance? Can we reverse them ? These questions will be addressed-through the recent advances of IRCAN teams of the University Côte d’Azur.
Eric Gilson is a university professor and hospital practitioner (PU-PHCE) in Nice Côte d´Azur University (UCA) and in the Department of Medical Genetics, Nice University Hospital. He is the director of the Institute for Research on Cancer and Aging (IRCAN). He was awarded the 2019 Inserm Grand Prize and is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and Academia Europaea. Gilson is internationally renowned for his pioneering work on telomeres and links with cancer and aging. Beyond his own research, his broader questions about aging biology led him to found IRCAN in 2012. With 15 research teams and 200 staff members, its excellence is internationally recognized. Continuing this approach, he coordinates the Inserm AGEMED and InterAging networks. Eric Gilson also heads up a Sino-French laboratory (cancer, aging and hematology) bringing together Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, Inserm, CNRS, Collège de France, and the Universities of Côte d´Azur, Grenoble-Alpes, and Jiaotong.
Eric Gilson PU-PHCE
Team “Telomere, Senescence and Cancer”
Director of the IRCAN (Institute for research on Cancer and Aging)
University Côte d’Azur, Inserm, CNRS
Nice, France
Facilitators: Sylvain Antoniotti (Innovation Hub Coordinator) and John Rowell (Innovation Hub Officer) at Ulysseus Ageing and Well-being Innovation Hub, based at Université Côte d’Azur.
Day | Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Time | 2 – 3.30 pm CET time
Host | Ageing and Well-being Innovation Hub, Université Côte d’Azur
Language | The webinar will be in English
Collaboration opportunities | Interested in collaborating with the Ageing and Well-being Innovation Hub of Université Côte d’Azur? If so, please contact John Rowell, Innovation Hub Officer.
COMPASS: Leading Ulysseus to become a European University excellence model through Research and Innovation” is a Horizon 2020 project of Ulysseus and the flagship for its R&I agenda and strategy.
COMPASS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 101035809. The views and opinions expressed in this communication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.