Research/Areas of Interest
Throughout my career I have focused on the question of why rates of aging differ among species, and among individuals within species. My lab uses evolutionary genetic and systems biology approaches to identify the genetic and environmental factors that influence age-related traits, and to uncover the mechanisms by which they do so. We focus in particular on analysis of the metabolome, which consists of the countless small molecules that make up the structural and functional building blocks of all life. The metabolome acts as a powerful bridge linking genotype and phenotype in naturally varying populations, and given that it is deeply evolutionarily conserved, what we learn from flies is likely to translate more broadly. Ongoing studies, some in flies, some in dogs, include work on sex differences in aging, the relationship between social behavior and aging, efforts to build predictive biological clocks, and more, using a combination of wet lab and computational approaches.