![Turning Back the Clock]()
Aging is usually accompanied by cellular and organ deterioration, due in part to key cellular maintenance pathways that no longer work properly. One such pathway is chaperone-mediate autophagy (CMA), responsible for selectively degrading used proteins so they don’t impair cell function. Ana Maria Cuervo, M.D., Ph.D., has received a five-year, $2.2 million NIH grant to study CMA activity in different organs to better understand why CMA efficiency degradation tails off in elderly people. Interventions that could rev up CMA could potentially slow down the aging process and delay the onset of age-related problems such as neurodegeneration, metabolic disorders and muscle weakness. Dr. Cuervo is professor of developmental and molecular biology, of anatomy and structural biology, and of medicine. She is co-director of the Institute for Aging Research and holds the Robert and Renée Belfer Chair for the Study of Neurodegenerative Diseases at Einstein. (4R37AG021904-17)
Posted on: Thursday, April 12, 2018