

Research Expertise and Interest
stem cell niche engineering, tissue repair, stem cell aging and rejuvenation
Research Description
Irina Conboy is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering. A key direction of research in her lab is to understand age-imposed and pathological changes in molecular compositions of systemic and local environments of adult stem cells and to calibrate these to health - youth. In the past few years this direction has been ramified into synthetic biology, CRISPR technologies, bio-orhtogonal proteomics and development of innovative digital bio-sensors that have been collaboratively applied to the fields of aging and diagnostics of genetic diseases. Resolving the conundrum of whether aging is a disease and what biomarks it, they posited that both, aging and disease, are biomarked not by the levels of gene expression or proteins, but their noise; and they identified the noise detectors (UC Berkeley IP) that reveal the natural polynomial curve of aging and allow quantifying (not predicting) the biological age. Success in their research will improve our understanding of the determinants of homeostatic health and will enable novel rational approaches to treat a number of degenerative, fibrotic, metabolic and inflammatory diseases, that often accompany human aging, as a class.
Links that cover and prioritize research in aging:
- https://www.aging-us.com/issue/v15i17#cover-6504862fb01de70008c981c8, https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205046
- https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2023/05/forever-young/
- https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2020/11/young-again/
- https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2019/10/new-frontiers-in-gene-editing/
- https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2017/07/15/blood-from-young-animals-can-revitalise-old-ones
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161122123102.htm
- https://time.com/4579899/young-blood-transfusion-aging/
- https://www.kqed.org/science/19381/new-uc-berkeley-study-shows-oxytocin-may-help-rejuvenate-aging-muscles