First, a little bit of history.....

Laboratory of Cellular Ageing (LCA) formally came into existence on the 15th June 1984, with my appointment as its first post-doc, from a research grant from Senetek PLC, to Professor Brian Clark.

Between 1984 and 1996, LCA was a member of the Division of Biostructural Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Aarhus. In 1996, LCA became a member of the Danish Research Council supported "Danish Centre for Molecular Gerontology" (DCMG,  a centre without walls!!), and then in 1996 joined the newly created Department of Molecular and Structural Biology Biology, later changed to the Department of Molecular Biology.

 

 

Molecular Biology Institute Group photo, 18 August 2006

 

   Molecular Biology Institute group photo, August 17, 2005

LCA's present technical staff:

Gunhild Siboska (expert on 2D-gels, HPLC and safety)

Helle Jacobsen (expert on long term cell culture)

Past-postdocs: Philippe Verbeke, Miriam Hercus, Søren Kahns, Yvonne Eskildsen-Helmund

Past technicians: Dorota Mosses, Anni Madsen, Susanne Olesen, Charlotte Lauridsen, Anne Gylling

 

Research projects completed at the LCA:

PhD theses

1. Anastassia Derventzi; Ageing: the failure of homeostasis. (July 1992).
2. Marie Kveiborg; Cellular and molecular mechanisms of bone loss in aging. (May 2000; in collaboration with Moustapha Kassem).
3. Karin Stendrup; Effect of age on human bone marrow stromal cells and their potential use in gene and cell therapy. (January 2002; in collaboration with Moustapha Kassem).
4. Jeannette Justesen; Investigations of the relationship between adipocyte and osteoblast differentiation. (May 2002; in collaboration with Moustapha Kassem).
5. Ripudaman Singh; Association of heat shock protein 70 genes with human aging, longevity, survival and stress response. (March 2006; in collaboration with Steen Kølvraa).

 

 MSc (Cand.scient.) theses

1. Jens Cavallius (Denmark); Activity estimation and properties of mammalian elongation factor 1a. (March 1986).
2. Bent Riis (Denmark); Studies on elongation factor 2 in eukaryotic protein synthesis. (August 1990)
3. Lise Svendsen (Denmark); Garlic and ageing: cellular and molecular studies on the effects of garlic on human skin fibroblasts during ageing. (April 1992).
4. Lisbeth Ankersen (Denmark); Ageing of human trabecular osteoblasts. (June 1994).
5. Lars H. Østergaard (Denmark); Applications of new two-dimensional electrophoresis: use of immobilized pH gradients as a tool for characterisation of proteins. (June 1994).
6. Hanne Norsgaard (Denmark); Ageing and differentiation in human keratinocytes. (May 1997).
7. Marianne Glenting (Denmark); Ageing of human skin cells. (May 1997).
8. Anders Olsen (Denmark); A study of the antioxidant properties of kinetin in vitro and in vivo. (March 1999).
9. Susanne Mogensen (Denmark); The protein universe of human skin keratinocytes undergoing differentiation and ageing in vitro. (August 2000).
10. Lakshman Sodagam (India); Gerontomodulatory effects of zeatin on human skin fibroblasts undergoing ageing in vitro. (August 2004).
11. Regina Gonzalez Dosal (Spain); Analysis of glycation on the proteasome during ageing using phage displayed antibodies. (January 2005).
12. David C. Kraft (Denmark);  Regulation of proteasome activity by heat shock, proteasomal inhibition and oxidative stress in human cells. (June 2005).
13. Elise R. Nielsen (Denmark);  Heat shock-induced alterations in MAP kinases during cellular aging in vitro. (August 2005).
14. Rehab E. Ali (Egypt); Hormetic modulation of age-related changes in human keratincytes: effects of heat shcok and curcumin. (September 2006).
15. Ulrich Berge (Germany);  Modulation of differentiation of normal human keratinocytes undergoing replicative senescence in vitro. (November 2006).
16. Mari Sild (Estonia); Individual variations in the expression of Werner gene in normal individuals. (September 2007; in collaboration with Bjørn Nexø).
17. Henrik Sejersen (Denmark); Dicarbonyl-induced accelrated aging in human fibroblasts. (September 2007).
18. Tina Hansen (Denmark); Age-related changes in the proteasomal activities in C. elgans, and its modulation by heat shock (December 2007; in collaboration with Anders Olsen, Buck Institute, USA).
19. Rune Nørggard (Denmark); Improved differentiation of telomerase-immortalised human bone marrow stem cells by mild heat stress (March 2008).
20. Iben Lundgaard (Denmark); Mutation of putative phosphorylation sites of ALG-2 (May 2008; in collaboration with Martin Berchtold, University of Copenhagen)

 

MSc part-I, prespeciale, and Erasmus/Socrates exchange student projects

1. Jean-Pierre Sibeijn (Belgium); Keratinocyte differentation during ageing: a search for possible markers of keratinocyte ageing. (August 1992)
2. Diogo Sampaio e Castro (Spain); Attempts at optimising the culture medium for growth of human osteoblasts. (August 1994).
3. Isabel dos Santos Cardoso (Spain); Attempts to quantify EF-1a in cell cultures. (August 1995)
4. Marie Kveiborg (Denmark); Characterisation of vitamin D effects on human osteoblasts undergoing in vitro ageing. (March 1998; in collaboration with Moustapha Kassem).
5. Susanne Mogensen (Denmark);  A manual in studying protein changes in ageing and differentation in keratinocytes using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. (June 1998).
6. Mette Christiansen (Denmark); Alterations in genomic stability and gene expression during cellular ageing. (December 1998; in collaboration with Tinna Stevnsner).
7. Jeannette Justesen (Denmark); Effect of ageing and osteoporosis on adipocyte cell differentiation in human bone marrow. (December 1999; in collaboration with Moustapha Kassem).
8. Karin Stendrup (Denmark); Effect of age and osteoporosis on growth potential of osteoprogenitor cells in human bone marrow. (December 1999; in collaboration with Moustapha Kassem).
9. Jannik Fonager (Denmark); Heat shock expression patterns in MRC5-V2 cells. (March 2000).
10. Marianne Deries (France);  Hormetic action of mild heat stress decreases the inducibility of protein oxidation and glycoxidation in human fibroblasts. (March 2001).
11. Regina Gonzalez Dosal (Spain); Effects of fish-, grape seed- and tomato extracts on cell proliferation and formation of 8-oxo-2´-deoxyguanosine in DNA in vitro. (June 2001).
12. Rasmus Beedholm (Denmark); Repeated mild heat shock stimulates proteasome activity in human skin fibroblasts during ageing. (June 2001).
13. Lakshman Sodagam (India); The oxidative damage of macromolecules. (June 2002).
14. Mari Sild (Estonia); Association of successful ageing with genomic maintenance and stress response: studies on WRN and HSP70 genes. (May 2005).
15. Ulrich Berge (Germany); Kinetin-indcued differentation of normal human keratinocytes undergoing ageing in vitro. (July 2005).
16. Juliane Behrens (Germany); Modulating differentiation and growth of immortalized keratinocytes by calcium, kinetin, curcumin, heat shock and sugars. (July 2006).
17. Tina Hansen (Denmark); Longevity and stress resistance have a negative effect on proteasome activity in Drosophila melanogaster. (September 2006).
18. Henrik Sejersen; Glyoxal-induced premature senescence in human fibroblasts. (September 2006).
19. Joana M.T. Magalhaes (Portugal);  Glucose-mediated modulation of ageing and differentation of human bone marrow stem cells. (September 2006).
20. Iben Lundgard (Denmark); Effects of glyoxal and methylglyoxal on lysosomes and Na,K,ATPase activity in hMSC-TERTs in relation to ageing. (March 2007).
21. Malgorzata Wierzbicka (Poland); Glyoxal-induced accelrated ageing in hTERT-immoblised mesenchymal stem cells (March 2007).
22. Weiwei Luo (Singapore); Heat shock-mediated modulation of angiogenesis in human umbilical cord vascular and microvascular endothelial cells. (July 2007).
23. Ricardo Fernandes (Portugal); Modulation of wound healing by ageing human fibroblasts by heat shock and glyoxal. (August 2007).
24. Cristovao F. Lima (Portugal); Visiting post-doc; Effects of various plant extracts and polyphenols on fibroblasts. (until June 2008).
25. Barbara Dymek (Poland); Testing the hormetic effects of curcumin on human fibroblasts (until July 2008).
26. Dino Demirovic (Denmark); Hormetic modulation of wound healing by heat, curcumin and polyphenols (started February 2008).

 

 

 

The most recent PhD success story: Ripudaman Singh with his three PhD supervisors - myself, Steen Kølvraa and Peter Bross (just after his PhD exam on 27 April 2006)

 

LCA's main research collaborators within Denmark:

Peter Kristensen (Molecular Biology Department, University of Aarhus): Applying phage-display antibody selection technology to ageing research and intervention.

Moustapha Kassem  (Endocrinology; Southern Denmark University, Odense) - bone cells, stem cells, telomerase immortalized bone marrow cells

Volker Loeschcke (Genetics and Ecology, University of Aarhus) - stress, hormesis and longevity in Drosophila.

 

 

Some pictures of the past and present members of the LCA over all these years.......

Early days:  A montage of 1984 to 1989 pictures of LCA 

 

 

 

When we first moved to the Science Park (Forskerparken) buildings in 1997..

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting Anastasia again - at Nafplion May 2006