MIPT to open Center for the Study of Aging
Center for Research on Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases
it is created on the basis of six MIPT laboratories
For the first time in Russia, a cluster of university laboratories is being united into a single research center to solve an applied life task – improving the quality of life in old age and combating age-related diseases.
The Center will unite three existing and three new laboratories of Phystech engaged in the study of membrane proteins. The management and supervisory board of the Center will include representatives of the international community of scientists involved in the study of aging mechanisms, including the founder of optogenetics Ernst Bamberg, biophysicists Ray Stevens, Georg Buldt, Valentin Gordeliy, Vadim Cherezov and others.
Raymond Stevens, Director and Co-founder of the IHuman Institute (Shanghai, China) This is how he comments on the creation of the Center: "I already have experience in creating an international research institute in China, and although Russia and China are very similar - not only in economics, but also, for example, in love with science, which is instilled here from an early age, nevertheless, the Aging Center being created at MIPT it will be unique for the whole world. Here, the best minds will be engaged in linking the study of cell membrane proteins with an understanding of the mechanisms of aging, and in the future – with the treatment of serious diseases: Alzheimer's, epilepsy, blindness. Now is the right time to create such a center, biophysics is on the rise, and Phys Tech, as one of the world's strongest physics universities, is perhaps the right place for this."
Ray Stevens at a lecture on the molecular mechanisms of aging. Photo: MIPT press service
The new research center will include six laboratories, three of which have already been established and are functioning at the Institute – this is the Laboratory of Chemistry and Physics of Lipids Prof. Vladimir Chupin, established by the State Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, and two laboratories supported by the 5-100 Program: Laboratory for Advanced Research of Membrane Proteins under the guidance of Prof. Georg Buldt and the Laboratory of Structural Biology of G-protein Coupled Receptors, Prof. Vadim Cherezov. As part of the research of membrane proteins by MIPT laboratories, the KR2 protein was studied – a new tool for studying neural processes of the brain, in addition, an approach was proposed that will significantly accelerate and simplify the study of membrane proteins that play an important role in the aging process.
Two more new laboratories will be headed by foreign experts – world-class experts in their field: Prof. Norbert Dencher from the Institute of Biophysics at the Technical University in Darmstadt and Prof. Dieter Willbold, Director of the Institute of Complex Systems (ICS-6) The Julich Research Center. The third laboratory, the Optogenetics laboratory, will be headed by MIPT Professor Valentin Gordeliy.
The Center's research will focus on the study of the most significant and difficult fundamental problems of molecular and cellular biology, the solution of which will contribute to understanding the nature of aging and related diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases (primarily Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases) and cardiovascular diseases, as well as cancer. These diseases are the main cause of death in developed countries, but to date, significant breakthroughs in understanding the exact mechanisms of their development have not yet occurred. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of aging is an important step towards increasing the duration of a healthy human life.
Also, three scientific groups will be created at the Center under the leadership of young scientists: Valentin Borshchevsky, Ivan Gushchin and Vitaly Shevchenko.
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20.10.2015