Healthy Ageing

News overview

07-09-'10	This smells like a failure André Uitterlinden and Eline Slagboom, scientific directors of the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Ageing, expressed heavy comments on an article in Science about longevity genes in the Dutch Newspaper NRC (July 10, 2010). Using a specific set of genetic markers, Perls et al. predicted with 77-percent accuracy whether someone would live to a very old age. “This smells like a failure” and “The Lancet or Nature Genetics would never have published this”. Read more

15-04-'10	Going beyond the sequence: the epigenome and human disease Genetic studies and in particular genome-wide association studies revealed numerous DNA sequence variants contributing to the risk of human disease. This provided important new insights in the biological processes underlying many common diseases. Together, however, the sequence variants explain only a small proportion of the disease risk. Are we overlooking something? Yes, more and more researchers say: the epigenome. In a paper in the FASEB Journal (April 2010), Bas Heijmans from the Leiden University Medical Center and member of the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Ageing and his colleagues at the LUMC and Free University of Amsterdam (VU) answer the question how the role of the epigenome in disease can effectively be investigated in large-scale studies. Read more

11-03-'10	Change in management team NCHA Prof. Rudi Westendorp recently got another important task in the umbrella organization Ti-Go (Top Institute Healthy Ageing), of which NCHA is one of the pillars. For that reason he has withdrawn from the management team of NCHA on March 9, 2010. His prior position as the scientific director of NCHA will be filled in by André Uitterlinden (who was already co-director). The new co-director will be Eline Slagboom. Read more

03-02-'10	Genetic variation in the human genome is involved in knee and hand osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis leading to pain and disability. Currently, there are no curative treatment options and only a few symptomatic treatments available for osteoarthritis. Genetic studies may help to gain more insight in the pathogenesis of the disease and in this way contribute to the development of new therapies. A study of the TREAT-OA consortium, in which our consortium participates, shows that common DNA variation on chromosome 7q22 influences the risk for osteoarthritis. Results are published in the February issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism. Read more

20-01-'10	NGI sponsoring for Postdoc Retreat 2010 On 21-23 April 2010, PCDI’s best known event, the annual Postdoc Retreat will be held for the 4th time. This three-day event is dedicated to career development: identifying your skills and talents, improving your transferable skills, orientation of career paths in Life Sciences, both within and outside academia and focussing on the future. The programme includes keynote lectures, training sessions, workshops and meet & greets with potential employers. The Postdoc Retreat is exclusively open to postdocs and final year PhD students in Life Sciences. Read more

20-01-'10	NGI - Distinguished Visiting Scientist Stipend The Distinguished Visiting Scientist Stipend offers top researchers associated with one of the NGI Genomics Centres an opportunity to perform research at a foreign top Institute. The programme also enables foreign top researchers to come to the Netherlands for a research project at one of the NGI Genomics Centres. Read more

11-01-'10	Nature Genetics paper on nine loci predisposing for changes in cardiac electrophysiology Variations in PR interval in electrocardiograms of human subjects reflect differences in electrical conductivity in the atria of the heart. A prolonged PR interval predisposes to atrial fibrillation, the most common form of arrhythmia. A study of the CHARGE consortium, in which our consortium participates, shows nine regions in the genome which influence this variation in electrical conductivity. Read more

08-01-'10	Two VIDI grants for research in elderly regarding sleep and artritis Henning Tiemeier and Joyce van Meurs, both researchers at the ErasmusMC and principal investigators within the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Ageing, recently received a ZonMw VIDI grant (800.000 Euro's) for their research lines concerning respectively sleep and osteoarthritis in elderly people. Read more

25-11-'09	CSG Prize for most relevant publication in society & genomics In 2010, The Centre for Society and Genomics will present the first CSG Prize. The CSG prize will be awarded to a publication that has most successfully translated ‘society & genomics’ research to an audience of outsiders. Those can be professionals, users, patients, consumers, citizens, school pupils, scientists or others affected by genomics in any way – that is, the audience is potentially anyone except merely one’s own academic peers. Submissions will be judged on the relevance and usability for their readers, who are potential users of the presented work. We invite submission of publications that have appeared between January 1, 2008 and January 1, 2010. Publications may be written in English, Dutch or in any other language, providing that an English or Dutch translation is subjoined. Any author may submit only one publication. The submission should include a one-page document with evidence and arguments to substantiate the relevance and usability of the publication. Files (consisting of publication, if necessary translation and supporting document) should be submitted no later than February 1, 2010. Read more

16-11-'09	Is the Dutch way of institutionalization of elderly a hurdle to reach their 100th anniversary? Calculations from the Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing show that the Dutch babies of today will probably reach their 100th anniversary. However, this will only occur when the health care for elderly people in The Netherlands will be improved drastically. During the fifties, The Netherlands were top of the world regarding life expectancy. Nowadays we are on the 30th position. This is probably not due to smoking behaviour, as is often thought, but to disintegration of societal groups and individualization: informal care by the large network of family members is replaced by institutionalised care. Read more

16-11-'09	Thesis defence of Lisette Stolk On December 1, 2009 Lisette Stolk will defend her thesis “Estrogen-Related Traits; from Candidate Genes to GWAS.”. Her promoter is prof. dr. André Uitterlinden, professor of Complex Genetics at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and co-director of the Netherlands consortium for Healthy Ageing. Location: Erasmus University, Woudestein Campus, 15:30h. Read more

26-10-'09	Four genetic variants for risk fracture Osteoporosis is defined by low Bone Mineral Density (BMD) and an increased susceptibility for fracture. Morbidity, mortality and expenditures for osteoporotic fractures is already very high (15 billion euro for Europe and USA) and will increase as populations age. Since BMD, and to a lesser extent also fracture risk, is highly heritable, substantial efforts have been dedicated to find such genes. The hypothesis-free Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) has been very successful in finding novel genes for BMD (see Rivadeneira et al., Nat Genet 2009) which sometimes also affect fracture risk. The challenge in further understanding these novel “GWAS genes” is not trivial however, since they concern new biological mechanisms which need much further exploration. It is therefore worthwhile to analyze known genes of which the products play a well–established role in bone physiology, the so-called candidate gene approach. Read more

12-10-'09	Skin cells reflecting rate of ageing Research of the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Ageing reveals a direct link between cellular stress responses of human skin cells and the rate of ageing. So far, evidence for this has only come from model organisms. In this project the researchers did their research in skin cells derived from young and very old subjects, and of the offspring of nonagenarian siblings and their partners as representatives of the general population. Read more

12-10-'09	Osteoporosis further unraveled New research of NCHA and the FP7 program GEFOS reveals 13 new genetic loci associated with bone mineral density, an important clinical measure for the assessment of osteoporosis, a disease in which bone mass and bone strength are reduced and risk of bone fracture is increased. This age-related disease affects millions of (primarily) women world-wide. This result may open new perspectives on treatment and prediction of osteoporosis. Read more

photo: Jan den Hengst