Tory Hagen, Core Director
Co-Principal Investigator, IGERT in Aging Sciences
Jamieson Endowed Chair in Healthspan Research, Linus Pauling Institute 

In the Diet and Genes Core researchers study the biological mechanisms underlying the aging process to develop targeted strategies that help maintain and promote good health. Researchers are also studying the inability of the aging body to respond to internal and external "insults" - from simple bone fractures to drug interactions and infections. Core members also explore the impact of nutrition on mitigating vulnerability to these stresses.

Diet and Genes Core faculty and research interests

Joe Beckman, Director Environmental Health Sciences Center

• Understanding the involvement of oxidative stress, superoxide dismutase and zinc in Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS)
• Examining the roles of nitric oxide, peroxynitrite and nitrotyrosine in human disease

Balz Frei, Director, Linus Pauling Institute

• Role of oxidative stress in chronic disease, particularly atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease
• Ameliorating effects of dietary and metabolic antioxidants, dietary supplements and metal chelators

Jadwiga Giebultowicz, Zoology

• Understanding the mechanisms of biological timing
• Investigating clock genes and their functional significance in healthy aging

Adrian Gombart, Biochemistry and Biophysics

• Physiological importance of vitamin D in our diet and its impact on immune response
• Investigating how vitamin D deficiency affects the innate immune system of the elderly

Tory Hagen, Jamieson Endowed Chair in Healthspan Research, Linus Pauling Institute

• Causes of age-related mitochondrial decay and its consequences with respect to cardiac dysfunction
• Mechanisms causing increased susceptibility to oxidative and toxicological insults

Emily Ho, Principal Investigator, Linus Pauling Institute

• Understanding dietary influences on cancer susceptibility
• Understand health benefits of zinc across the lifespan

Donald Jump, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences

• Dietary and hormonal regulation of hepatic lipid and carbohydrate metabolism
• Impact of hepatic metabolism on the onset and progression of chronic diseases, e.g. diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Kathy Magnusson, Veterinary Medicine

• Prevention of declines in learning and memory
• Mechanisms underlying the age-related changes in the NMDA receptor

Claudia Maier, Chemistry

• Biomarkers and proteomics of oxidative stress
• Development and application of mass-spectromery-based methodology for the structural and functional characterization of proteins and their interaction with other biomolecules

Jan (Fred) Stevens, Pharmacy

• Interactions of  biological antioxidants with lipid peroxidation products
• Novel biological functions of vitamin C

David Williams, Environmental and Molecular Toxicology

• Drug/xenobiotic metabolism 
• Dietary modulation of cancer