Elissa Epel, UCSF Department of Psychiatry explores the connection between stress, eating and cellular aging. She and her colleagues have found that the cells of high stress individuals appeared older than the cells of those with low stress. These findings have implications for understanding how, at the cellular level, stress may promote earlier onset of age-related diseases. Series: “UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public” [2/2008] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 13721]
How do lifestyle and stress affect health and aging? UCSF researcher Elissa Epel explores the effects of stress on our cells and how to manage the stressful elements in life. Series: Womens Health Today [6/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 15245]
Google Tech Talks December, 19 2007 The DNA in our cells consists of not only the well-known 46 chromosomes currently receiving such avid attention from specialists in sequencing technology, but also a large number of copies of a relatively tiny, circular DNA molecule inside the "powerhouse of the cell," the mitochondrion. Among other things, mitochondria perform the chemistry of breathing – they extract energy from nutrients by exquisitely regulated chemical reactions that consume oxygen and create CO2. This vital function depends on the 13 proteins encoded by the mitochondrial DNA (mtdna), as well as on hundreds of proteins that are encoded in our more famous genome and imported across the mitochondrial surface after construction in the body of the cell. The mtdna accumulates mutant, non-functional variants far faster than our main genome, so 20 years ago scientists began looking at the idea of putting copies of the 13 genes of interest into the nucleus after making modifications that would cause them to be processed by the same “protein import” machinery that processes the mitochondrion’s many other proteins, thus making the mtdna itself superfluous and mutations in it harmless. I will discuss this concept in detail in my talk. Progress has been very erratic in the meantime but is now very rapid, partly because of Methuselah Foundation-funded research. However, this approach may still prove impossible, so many other, ostensibly simpler ideas – some more …
Google Tech Talks December, 19 2007 The DNA in our cells consists of not only the well-known 46 chromosomes currently receiving such avid attention from specialists in sequencing technology, but also a large number of copies of a relatively tiny, circular DNA molecule inside the "powerhouse of the cell," the mitochondrion. Among other things, mitochondria perform the chemistry of breathing – they extract energy from nutrients by exquisitely regulated chemical reactions that consume oxygen and create CO2. This vital function depends on the 13 proteins encoded by the mitochondrial DNA (mtdna), as well as on hundreds of proteins that are encoded in our more famous genome and imported across the mitochondrial surface after construction in the body of the cell. The mtdna accumulates mutant, non-functional variants far faster than our main genome, so 20 years ago scientists began looking at the idea of putting copies of the 13 genes of interest into the nucleus after making modifications that would cause them to be processed by the same “protein import” machinery that processes the mitochondrion’s many other proteins, thus making the mtdna itself superfluous and mutations in it harmless. I will discuss this concept in detail in my talk. Progress has been very erratic in the meantime but is now very rapid, partly because of Methuselah Foundation-funded research. However, this approach may still prove impossible, so many other, ostensibly simpler ideas – some more …
