A molecular epidemiological approach to senescence: influence of early life environmental exposure on (epi) genetics (R-4701)

Ageing is a process influenced both by genetic variation and environmental factors. Environmental factors are all factors that influence this process from outside of the organism, for example smoking, pollution and exercise. Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. Epidemiology is the study of the patterns, causes and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. A big advantage of epidemiologic research is that it looks at people in their 'natural' environment, and looks to explain the differences between people within a population. Age is an important factor that influences how people adapt to environmental exposures. We know that ageing already starts in utero. In utero exposures impact the newborn, but we believe they also have an impact on development of adult-onset disease. The ENVIRONAGE birth cohort currently consists of 560 mother-newborn pairs and enrollment is still ongoing while structured follow-up measures of cardiovascular phenotypes have been initiated. I will study early signs / patterns of ageing in association with environmental factors at the molecular level. To this end, I study epigenetic changes induced by early life exposures in age related pathways and I want to unravel the meaning of these pathways in early life variation of cardiovascular phenotypes of both the micro- and macro-circulation.

Keywords:(epi) genetics

Disciplines:Plant biology