Title
Professor

Department
Dept of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology


Faculty URL
https://nst.berkeley.edu/users/danica-chen

Research Group
https://nst.berkeley.edu/group/Chen-Lab

Email
danicac@berkeley.edu

Phone
(510) 642-0603


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Research Expertise and Interest
aging, stem cell, metabolism, diseases of aging

Research Description
One of the most fundamental questions in biology is how we age. The past decades have witnessed a significant revision of a traditional view that aging is simply a random and passive process that is solely driven by entropy. In fact, the aging process is regulated genetically and lifespan can be extended by single gene mutations. The Chen Lab?research aims to understand molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate the aging process and explore therapeutic targets to slow aging and even reverse aging-associated degeneration. The most intriguing aspect of pharmaceutical intervention that targets the aging pathways is that, instead of targeting a specific disease, it has the potential of ameliorating a wide array of seemingly unrelated diseases associated with aging, such as cancer, tissue degeneration, metabolic syndrome, and immune dysfunction.