Lab Alumni Start Independent Groups
April 2021

Iron Bolt Award
February 7, 2020

Dr. Gladyshev Debates – Undoing Aging
May 15, 2019

Dr. Gladyshev and Dr. Aubrey de Grey debate the feasibility of comprehensive damage repair at ‘Undoing Aging 2019’ in Berlin, Germany. To watch the debate click here.

Our new paper entitled “Using DNA Methylation Profiling to Evaluate Biological Age and Longevity Interventions” is receiving media attention. To read more click here.

Sang Goo Lee’s (et al) paper entitled, “Age-associated molecular changes are deleterious and may modulate life span through diet,” is featured in the February 2017 issue of Harvard Magazine. To read more on this feature, click here.

Dr. Gladyshev is featured and recognized as a Redox Pioneer in Volume 25, Issue 1 of the ARS Journal. To discover more about this article, click here.

Last Friday, Dr. Gladyshev was invited to speak at the 11th Annual Harvard/Glenn Symposium on Aging. Every year, the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging hosts the Harvard Symposium on Aging at Harvard Medical School. The mission of the symposium is to educate the wider research community about advancements in this fast-paced field and to stimulate collaborative research in this area.

Following the symposium, Dr. Gladyshev was gifted the Paul F. Glenn Aging award (pictured above) by the Center’s Co-Directors, Drs. Bruce Yankner and David Sinclair, along with the President and Director of the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, Mark R. Collins.

More information and photos of the day’s event can be viewed here.

Dr. Gladyshev is featured in this week’s BWH Clinical & Research News. Read more regarding his passion for aging research here.

The Gladyshev lab would like to congratulate Dr. Siming Ma on his 2016 graduation from Harvard University. Above, Dr. Ma is pictured with his advisor, Dr. Gladyshev, at his May 26th Hooding Ceremony. It was a pleasure to have Dr. Ma as a part of our team for four productive years! We wish him amazing success in his future endeavors.

Siming Ma, a graduate research student in our lab, successfully defended his thesis titled, “Molecular Patterns and Signatures of Longevity” today. Siming joined the lab in April 2012 as a graduate student of the Harvard Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) PhD program. For his thesis research, Siming developed and used bioinformatics tools to analyze the variation of gene expression, metabolites and elements across different species of mammals, flies and yeasts, to identify the molecular patterns associated with species natural lifespans. During this time, he published 3 papers as first author and 6 papers as contributing author. Following his graduation, Siming will join the Genome Institute of Singapore to focus on cancer biology. Congratulations Dr. Ma!

On Monday, Jan. 25th, Dr. Gladyshev hosted a lab only event discussing the nature of aging. Guest lecturers were invited to propose their theories on aging in relation to their current research. The event lead to an afternoon of insightful discussions on this very hot topic.

Yesterday, the Genome Research September issue was released much to the delightful surprise of our colleague, Dr. Marco Mariotti. The September cover features artwork painted by Dr. Mariotti’s mother, Milena Biolcati Rinaldi. The cover illustration was inspired by the concepts of Mariotti et al’s SPS paper, which is published in the September issue.

More information on the SPS publication can be found here.

Vyacheslav Labunskyy, Ph.D.
Lab Member from 2003-2014
Dr. Labunskyy is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine located in Boston, MA. Research in the Labunskyy lab is focused on the biology of aging and studying the mechanisms that underlie aging in humans using skin aging as a model system.

Byung Cheon Lee, Ph.D.
Lab Member from 2006-2014
Dr. Lee is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences and Biotechnology at Korea University located in Seoul, S. Korea. Dr. Lee’s research is focused on Redox Biology (redox protein biochemistry; functional regulation by redox protein; and the development of sensing system to redox status change) and Aging Biology (mechanism of lifespan extension by methionine restriction diet; and the regulation of aging by hydrogen sulfide and sulfur metabolism).

Dr. Gladyshev speaks on oxidative species, origins of senescence, and cumulative damage with Serious Science. The video makes it to #6 on the Top-20 list.

Dr. Gladyshev has been awarded the 2013 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for his project proposal entitled, “Mechanisms of lifespan control.” The Pioneer Award “complements NIH’s traditional, investigator-initiated grant programs by supporting individual scientists of exceptional creativity, who propose pioneering – and possibly transforming approaches – to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.” Dr. Gladyshev shares this year’s honor with 11 other U.S. scientists.

Click to learn more about the Pioneer Award & Dr. Gladyshev’s project.

LiveScience: Longest-Living Bat Holds Clues to Longevity

Business Insider: How Tiny Bats Can Help Us Extend Human Life

In October of 2012, Vyacheslav Labunskyy, Ph.D. was awarded a prestigious K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support his research on the role of the unfolded protein response in aging. Dr. Labunskyy’s research interests include the basic mechanisms of aging and understanding the biological processes that underlie age-related diseases. In his studies, Dr. Labunskyy uses a combination of genetic, molecular and biochemical approaches to characterize the mechanisms by which ER stress response signaling regulates longevity and how protein folding capacity and redox state in the ER change with age in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The recently published naked mole rat (NMR) paper in Nature has been making headlines since being available online on Wednesday (Oct. 12th) afternoon. Below are a few selected highlights from some of the US’ major news publications.

Bloomberg Businessweek: Naked Mole Rat Genome Map May Aid in Cancer, Aging Research

Harvard Gazette: Cancer clues from another species

NPR: Naked Mole Rat’s Genetic Code Laid Bare

USA Today: Cancer-free rodent genome may hold key to aging, disease

Vyacheslav Labunskyy, Ph.D. has been chosen as one out of fifteen postdoctoral fellows in the country to receive the 2011 Ellison Medical Foundation/AFAR Postdoctoral Research in Aging Award. The Ellison Medical Foundation created the award, in partnership with the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), “to encourage and further the careers of postdoctoral fellows with outstanding promise in the basic biological and biomedical sciences relevant to understanding aging processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. The award is intended to provide significant support to permit these postdoctoral fellows to become established in the field of aging.”

Dr. Labunskyy’s project seeks to better understand the link between endoplasmic reticulum stress and aging, using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system. Results of his research may have broad implications for many age-related diseases associated with aberrant folding and accumulation of misfolded proteins and may provide a rational basis for new therapeutic strategies to delay the aging process in humans.

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) has awarded Dr. Gladyshev the highly selective National Institute of Health (NIH) MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award. The award, which was initiated in 1987, awards less than 5 percent of NIH-funded investigators. Investigators who are leaders in their field and demonstrate “superior competence and outstanding productivity in research endeavors” are awarded extended grant support for up to ten years to their current grant without having to submit a traditional competing renewal application.

Dr. Gladyshev’s project relating to thioredoxin reductases and redox regulation was selected for this prestigious MERIT award. Dr. Gladyshev believes that the MERIT award will allow him and the lab to develop a more general approach in addressing critical issues of thiol-based redox control and to study its basic properties and specific examples of redox regulation, both of which have been at the core of research interests in the Gladyshev lab.

Another Graduate Student Successfully Completes Ph.D. Program
June 30, 2011

On June 17th, Marina Kasaikina successfully defended her thesis entitled, “Understanding of functions of selenoproteins and dietary selenium by using animal models,” at her home university, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Since 2006, Marina has worked in the lab as a graduate student researching selenium supplementation and consequences of selenium deficiency. During this time, she also published 4 papers. Following her August graduation, she will continue her research on cancer and selenium supplementation as a researcher in the lab. Congratulations, Marina, on your accomplishments!

Congratulations are in order to Mikalai Malinouski, graduate research student in the Gladyshev lab since August 2005, for completing and successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis earlier this season. Under the guidance of Dr. Gladyshev and Dmitri Fomenko, Ph.D., Mikalai graduated with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on May 6, 2011.

Mikalai’s Ph.D. thesis is entitled, “Understanding of Selenium Utilization and Redox Homeostasis Through Imaging and High-throughput Approaches.” During his Ph.D. course work, he was able to publish 3 papers and was also involved in various projects, including: studying the transportation and regulation of trace elements in human cells and tissues; developing a high-throughput method for ionomic profiling in mammalian cells; detecting new genes involved in trace element metabolism and identified candidate genes that uniquely regulate metabolism of particular trace elements.

We are also happy to announce that Mikalai will continue to further his research on thioredoxin reductases and selenoproteins as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Gladyshev lab.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has recently announced its 2011 Fellows, naming Vadim Gladyshev, Ph.D. as one of them. Only 15 Harvard faculty members were elected as Fellows this year. Vadim joins three previous honorees from the Division of Genetics, Department of Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital: Raju Kucherlapti, Ph.D., Claude P. Lechene, M.D., Ph.D., and Steve Elledge, Ph.D. in receiving this prestigious honor.

Read more…