Aging is an important aspect of human civilizations especially considering the pressure that growing elderly populations are putting on modern societies.
The Visiting Professor Federico Sesti (Rutgers University, USA) will offer a mini-course on aging, whose broad-spectrum topics will make it useful to multiple study courses and programs. The course will be offered to the Master Students in Medical Biotechnology (both 1st and 2nd year) and to Bachelors’ students in Biotechnology (3rd year). The course is open to 70 students that must register to the course home page on DIR.
The course ranges from a brief introduction of the social and economic aspects of aging, to its biology and etiology, to its associated pathologies including clinical and psychological management. The mini-course will explore the following concepts:
-Topic 1: Aging in human culture. Sociology/economics of aging
-Topic 2: Cellular and organismal senescence. Genetics of aging. Metabolism of aging 1: caloric restriction. Metabolism of aging 2: insulin IGF-1-like pathway
-Topic 3: Molecular basis for aging. Telomere shortening. Free radical theory. DNA damage
-Topic 4: neurodegenerative disease. Huntington disease. Alzheimer's disease
2 credits (cfu, ECTS) will be awarded. To obtain them, students must attend at least 50% of lectures and solve the quizzes that will be provided during classes
- Docente: Diego Cotella