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Approved Research

Genetics of Aging, Health, and Longevity: Focus on Regulatory Mechanisms and Functional Variants Connecting Aging and Alzheimer's Disease

Principal Investigator: Professor Svetlana Ukraintseva
Approved Research ID: 65537
Approval date: April 28th 2021

Lay summary

The age is a well-known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, the relationships between biological aging and AD are not well understood. Aging and AD are both very complex conditions, so various pathways may contribute to each, and some of these pathways may be shared between the two. The objective of this project is to significantly improve our understanding of the complexity of AD, and common genetic mechanisms in aging and AD, with special emphases on regulatory and rare functional variants involved in aging and AD-related traits, and on joint influence (additive, and gene x gene interaction effects) of genes from pathways relevant to both AD and aging, on AD onset and longevity, including pathways regulating neural apoptosis, neuroinflammatory responses, energy production and brain glucose metabolism, among other.

To meet the project objective, we will conduct  secondary analyses of existing human data collected in several longitudinal and cross-sectional human studies, including UK Biobank, containing genetic and phenotypic information on more than half a million individuals in total.  The knowledge obtained in this project will help find novel genetic targets for AD personalized prevention.