Systems Aging Lab @ Westlake University
Biological systems such as tissues and cells, despite being made from noisy and error-prone components, are strikingly robustness due to intricate networks of control circuits collectively known as homeostasis. Homeostasis is fundamentally a systems-level, emergent phenomenon, difficult to understand from merely bottom-up description of individual parts.
Our research aims to discovery “design” principles of homeostasis through its unraveling in aging and stress. In the recent decade, detailed and painstaking quantiative measurements in various organisms have yielded such empirical “laws”. These are specific yet generalisable, simple yet predictable mathematical equations describing the dynamics of aging. We are delineating the principles behind these quantitative “laws”, and use new experiments and data to ground and challenge the boundaries of these principles.
At the time, we aim to resolve mechanistic mysteries in cell physiology and tissue homestasis surrounding important genetic pathways discovered in aging research. Our top-down mathematical modeling and quantiative experiments can precisely define the functions of genes and genetic pathways on the systems-level, which are difficult to derive from molecular details alone. Biological questions that motivate us include: How can the same genome gives rise to cell types that vary so much in lifespan? How can mammals of the same size differ in lifespan by an order of magnitude? Whether and how do organisms control their rates of aging?
Highlights
Our Research
Our methodology focuses on iterative theory-experiment cycles, traditionally found in physics. We use quantitative experiments to derive empirical “laws”, build minimal, coarse‐grained models, which in turn motivate us to do new experiments to test them.
Our Projects
We believe in open and reproducible science. We push to make protocols, data, software & tools accessible to anyone around the world.
Our Team
We are a team of driven and collaborative researchers that want to use first principle modelling and systematic experiments to make new discoveries in biology. We are building a nuturing environment where we use cutting-edge research to grow as scientists and people.