PROGRAM Definition and Measurement of Aging: Definition of aging and senescence. Identification of characters associated with the aging process. Extent of age-related changes inter- and intra-individual. Aging theories. Genetic approaches to the study of aging and longevity: Gerontogenes and longevity genes. Human studies: genealogical, population, twins, sex, healthy centenarians, longitudinal studies. Experimental animal models: mice and other rodents, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, caernorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster. Cellular aging: cell senescence and apoptosis. Telomeres and telomerase. DNA damage: endogenous and exogenous. DNA repair systems. Decline of the repair systems during aging. The pleiotropic effect of p53 in aging and carcinogenesis. protein synthesis, post-translational modifications. DNA helicase. Progeroid Syndromes: Cockayne Syndrome, trichothiodystrophy, Bloom syndrome, Werner's syndrome, Alzheimer syndrome. Molecular and therapeutic targets. Genetics of cancer cells: The clonal origin of the tumor cells. The genetic defects that interfere with the stability of the genome, DNA repair and regulation of the cell cycle.

Scientific articles provided by the teacher;

Slides could be downloaded from dropbox: username: genetica.invecchiamento@email.it; password: genetica