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The key to healthy ageing

In order to increase the quality of life, a group of researchers from the Laboratory of Cellular Ageing at Aarhus University, and their foreign collaborators intend to find the factors that influence health, ageing and longevity. The new project is supported by the EU with a grant amounting to Euro 7 million.

The researchers intend to study whether there is evidence that certain genes can affect healthspan, and if so, which genes. Figure: Suresh Rattan.

Healthspan (the life period when one is generally healthy and free from serious disease) depends on nature (genetic makeup) and nurture (environmental influences, from the earliest stages of development throughout life).

Genetic studies reveal differences in the genes that can affect healthspan. Similarly, there are numerous claims made about lifestyle modifications or treatments, which can improve healthspan. With the new research project, the researchers intend to study whether there is evidence that certain genes can affect healthspan, and if so, which genes.

In both cases, rigorous testing for potential interventions is hampered by the long lifespan of human beings and the ethical concerns. Therefore, experimental model systems with short lifespan, for example a non-parasitic free living nematode roundworm (C. elegans), and human cell culture systems can be very useful for testing, validating and developing novel interventions.

The purpose of the studies is to determine whether it is possible to extend healthspan and thus provide a better quality of life.


The Horizon 2020 project Ageing with Elegans is a consortium of 17 participating teams from Europe, USA and China, and includes academic, clinical, demographic and industrial partners. The five-year project, with a budget of about Euro 7 million, is coordinated from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and Suresh Rattan from the Laboratory of Cellular Ageing (LCA), Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, is a partner.

Suresh Rattan and LCA are internationally renowned for their research on the cellular and molecular basis of different types of human cells, for example skin fibroblasts, keratinocytes, bone cells, endothelial cells and immortalised bone marrow stem cells. Normal human cells grown in the defined culturing conditions in the laboratory undergo a very specific process of ageing and senescence (see figure). Using this experimental system, LCA has previously discovered the ageing-modulatory effects of kinetin and zeatin, and has also documented the beneficial hormetic effects of mild stress from high temperature and from some non-nutritional food components, such as curcumin in the spice turmeric. In this Horizon 2020 project, LCA will apply the same approach to validate potential health-promoting compounds to be first screened by other members of the consortium using C. elegans.


More information

Suresh Rattan

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
Aarhus University, Denmark
+45 2899 2496 - rattan@mbg.au.dk