Topic: Aging and Cancer: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Speaker: Professor Fu Xiang-Dong, School of Medicine and School of Life Sciences, Westlake University
Date and time: April 29, 13:30–15:00
Venue: Auditorium of L Building
Host: Liu Ru-Juan, Ma Hanhui
Abstract:
It is striking to note similar sets of hallmarks associated with aging and cancer, raising the question of what might be the common mechanisms that drive these fundamental aspects of biology, which begs an even bigger question of what might be the program that determines the life span of living organisms. These questions will be discussed in a context studying the loss-of-function mutation of the Cockayne Syndrome group B (CSB) gene, an ATPase involved in transcription-coupled DNA damage repair, which causes cancer in mice but premature aging and severe neurological disorders in humans. Mechanistic dissection reveals CSB deficiency-induced genome instability via augmented R-loop formation, suggesting that genome instability is a key part of the molecular program underlying both aging and cancer.
Biography:
Fu Xiang-Dong received his PhD degree in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University (with Jonathan Leis) in 1988 and postdoctoral training at Harvard University (with Tom Maniatis) from 1988 to 1992. He joined the faculty at UC, San Diego and rose through the rank (Assistant Professor, 1992-1998; Associate Professor, 1998 to 2002; and Full Professor, 2002-2022). In 2023, he moved back to China and joined Westlake University as Chair Professor in RNA Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Fu made a series of discoveries through his career, including (1) contributing to the founding of the SR protein family of splicing factors and understanding their roles in constitutive and regulated pre-mRNA splicing, (2) discovering and characterizing the SRPK family of SR protein-specific kinases in signaling and cancer, (3) revealing diverse strategies for RNA-RNA binding proteins in regulated gene expression, and (4) elucidating regulatory RNA programs critical for cell fate switch, most notably PTB knockdown-induced trans-differentiation of non-neuronal cells to functional neurons. His contributions to biomedical research have been recognized by selection as Searle Scholar (1994), the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar (1997), AAAS Fellow (2010), and Falling Walls Berlin for the Science Breakthroughs award (2020).