Weiwei Dang

Baylor College of Medicine, USA

Title: Epigenetic and Chromatin Regulation of Aging in Mammalian Stem Cells

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Biography

Weiwei Dang is an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, a core faculty member at the Huffington Center on Aging and a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. His laboratory studies epigenetic regulation mechanisms of aging and age-associated diseases. His research uses yeast replicative aging as a model, together with human primary cell lines and adult stem cells, to study evolutionarily conserved epigenetic pathways during aging and development of age-related diseases.

Abstract

Functional decline and dysregulation of stem cells contribute to tissue and organismal aging. Significant changes in transcriptome during aging, from altered gene expression to aberrant transcription, have been observed in various tissues and cell types, even at the single-cell level. These changes are linked to decline in stem cell function and loss of stem cell identity. However, the molecular mechanisms that underlie these changes remain poorly understood. In this meeting, I will discuss profound chromatin changes we discovered during mammalian aging and describe how these chromatin changes drive transcriptomic changes observed in aged stem cells and tissues.