UCSF Bakar Aging Research Institute

We bring together UCSF scientists and clinicians to uncover mechanisms behind aging, develop novel diagnostic/therapeutic tools, and establish best practices for providing equitable care to older adults in our communities. geroscience.ucsf.edu

Check this out from BARI’s Martin Kampmann: His team grew human brain cells with a mutation that causes frontotemporal dementia. The mutant tau protein led to shorter axons, similar to removing tau. Interesting work that could point to pre-symptom neuronal changes.

Great work from BARI’s Todd Nystul! He shows aging fly ovaries struggle because the surrounding support cells start to fail, they don’t wrap eggs properly, accrue DNA damage, and have trouble dividing. But turning up an autophagy gene nearly doubles egg-laying in older flies!

Congrats to BARI’s Dena Dubal and team! Their new study links the longevity gene klotho to better executive cognition in early Parkinson’s. Mouse studies show klotho counters α-syn toxicity, extends lifespan & rescues memory. Promising work! jneurosci.org/content/jneuro…

Congratulations to BARI’s Michelle Arkin! She has been elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honors. A well-deserved recognition of her groundbreaking work in pharmaceutical chemistry and drug discovery!

New insights into protein quality control in neurodegeneration. jbc.org/action/showPdf…

Interesting work from BARI’s Martin Kampmann & team! They show an Hsp40 cochaperone suppresses toxic polyglutamine aggregates (key in Huntington’s disease), with context-dependent effects on polyglycine too.

Optimizations boosted performance, a powerful new toolkit for synthetic biology and beyond! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42026131/

Congrats to BARI’s Seth Shipman on this new Nature Biotechnology paper! His team expanded retron recombineering to 15 phylogenetically distinct bacteria, achieving high-efficiency precise genome editing far beyond E.Coli.

Low muscle mass might play a bigger role in functional decline than we thought. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41965250/

Exciting work from BARI’s Peggy Cawthon in Age and Ageing! They use direct muscle measurement (D3Cr) to show age-related muscle loss tracks closely with declines in strength and walking speed, especially in men.

BARI Member Roarke Kamber Receives Prestigious W. M. Keck Award for Innovative Cancer Therapy Platform! Read more here: geroscience.ucsf.edu/news/bari-memb…

Interesting work from BARI’s Christopher Hernandez in mBio! S. aureus gets squeezed in tiny bone channels, stopping it from growing or migrating. Cells enter by fluid pressure, not by dividing their way in. Key insight for bone infections!

Exciting work from BARI’s Kevan Shokat in Biological Chemistry! The pan-Ras inhibitor daraxonrasib acts as a “GAP mimetic”, restoring GTPase activity in mutant Ras, and powerfully synergizes with K-Ras Switch-II inhibitors. Smart chemistry for tough cancers.

Congrats to BARI’s Jinjjing Li on her new Naturepaper! A groundbreaking single-cell spatial atlas of the human maternal-fetal interface reveals how cells coordinate across pregnancy. Major step forward for understanding healthy pregnancy! nature.com/articles/s4158…

Exciting new paper from BARI’s Tamara Alliston! It shows the Alzheimer's risk gene APOE4 weakens bones in women (but not men) by disrupting the cells that maintain bone quality. Stronger effects in bone than brain. advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.10…