Adam Antebi
Adam Antebi, born 1961 in Cleveland, Ohio, studied biochemistry at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, USA, and received his Ph.D. in biology from MIT, Cambridge, studying calcium signaling in yeast in the lab of Gerald Fink. He spent his postdoctoral studies focusing on the threadworm C. elegans developmental timing in the lab of Ed Hedgecock at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Afterwards he went on to become an independent group leader at the MPI for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany, where he worked on hormonal regulation of longevity in C. elegans. He was then recruited to the Huffington Center on Aging at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, USA, as an Assistant Professor. In 2008 Dr. Antebi returned to Germany as a director of the newly established Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne.
Prof. Dr. Adam Antebi’s research group focuses on how evolutionarily conserved signal transduction pathways, hormonal mechanisms, and metabolism impact development and longevity in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Such new insights into mechanisms that regulate lifespan may lead to innovative approaches to improve human health into old age. Early work from Prof. Antebi‘s research group demonstrated that a steroid receptor in C. elegans regulates longevity in response to signals from the reproductive system. They further showed that these pathways also affect the organism´s developmental progression through its 4 larval stages, thus having broad spectrum effects on temporal control at all life phases. The signaling and metabolic inputs onto steroid receptor signaling and their downstream outputs are of great future interest. Furthermore, Dr. Antebi and his team discovered a critical link between steroid receptors and the FOXO transcription factor via let-7 microRNAs, revealing important crosstalk between these longevity factors. Most recently Prof. Antebi and his group have shown that activation of hexosamine metabolism and increased cellular concentration of the hexosamine metabolite N-acetylglucosamine enhances protein quality control. This increases lifespan and eliminates damaging protein aggregates that can act as triggers for neurodegenerative diseases.
Future research in the Antebi laboratory will continue to have a focus on unraveling hormonal signaling pathways and downstream mechanisms that improve protein quality control, immunity, and metabolism. Moreover, Prof. Antebi and his team of scientists hope to manipulate the hexosamine pathway in order to stimulate protein quality control mechanisms and attenuate neurodegenerative diseases. If this should prove to be the case, their findings might provide a novel therapeutic approach for many neurodegenerative and aging-associated diseases.
Prof. Dr. Adam Antebi’s research group focuses on how evolutionarily conserved signal transduction pathways, hormonal mechanisms, and metabolism impact development and longevity in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Such new insights into mechanisms that regulate lifespan may lead to innovative approaches to improve human health into old age. Early work from Prof. Antebi‘s research group demonstrated that a steroid receptor in C. elegans regulates longevity in response to signals from the reproductive system. They further showed that these pathways also affect the organism´s developmental progression through its 4 larval stages, thus having broad spectrum effects on temporal control at all life phases. The signaling and metabolic inputs onto steroid receptor signaling and their downstream outputs are of great future interest. Furthermore, Dr. Antebi and his team discovered a critical link between steroid receptors and the FOXO transcription factor via let-7 microRNAs, revealing important crosstalk between these longevity factors. Most recently Prof. Antebi and his group have shown that activation of hexosamine metabolism and increased cellular concentration of the hexosamine metabolite N-acetylglucosamine enhances protein quality control. This increases lifespan and eliminates damaging protein aggregates that can act as triggers for neurodegenerative diseases.
Future research in the Antebi laboratory will continue to have a focus on unraveling hormonal signaling pathways and downstream mechanisms that improve protein quality control, immunity, and metabolism. Moreover, Prof. Antebi and his team of scientists hope to manipulate the hexosamine pathway in order to stimulate protein quality control mechanisms and attenuate neurodegenerative diseases. If this should prove to be the case, their findings might provide a novel therapeutic approach for many neurodegenerative and aging-associated diseases.
Country:
Germany