פרופ' גיל עצמון

פרופסור חבר

החוג לביולוגיה של האדם

דוא"ל: gatzmon@univ.haifa.ac.il

טלפון: 972-4-8280765

Research interest

The rapid graying of populations and the attendant increase in age related diseases has emerged as a major global public health issue. Biological aging is generally attributed to loss of robustness in biological systems, and is accompanied by increased incidence of age–associated chronic diseases, diminishing quality of life and places burden on the healthcare system. This situation has challenged the science and the health practitioner communities to come up with strategies to decipher the biology that drives aging in order to find ways to both delay aging and support healthy aging. Popular approaches to exploring the aging mechanism and pathways involved in aging include gene scavenging, either through a candidate gene approach or unbiased screening, such as GWAS. Genetic information from these studies on the DNA level has paved the way for the understanding of the aging mechanism, but only scratches the surface in terms of understanding other biological forces behind aging, such as environmental effects, gene expression, translation and regulation, and the interaction between these components. This observation led to screening of whole-genome utilizing high-throughput technology for genes associated with longevity.