The 18th Annual CALM (Caregivers are Learning More) Conference will take place on Saturday, November 3 and will feature expert speakers, onsite health screenings and a resource fair.
The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Scholars and Benefactors Luncheon is an annual event recognizing the donor support that makes achieving strides in gerontology a reality.
Economist and USC Leonard Davis Associate Professor Mireille Jacobson studies how health care policies affect patient well-being.
New report examines how policymakers and workplaces might better support caregivers, who are impacted both personally and professionally while providing care.
Declines in Americans’ life expectancy warrants thorough examination of possible systemic causes, says USC Leonard Davis Assistant Professor Jessica Ho.
Brendan Miller is a neuroscience PhD student in the Cohen Lab. Miller, who recently earned a Young Investigator Award from Alzheimer’s Los Angeles (ALZLA), spoke to us about his research studying mitochondrial mutations in Alzheimer’s disease.
Q: What are you hoping to discover?
A: We know that mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the earliest hallmarks of Alzheimer’s, but it’s still unclear what is actually driving that dysfunction. I am hoping that we can find new mitochondrial gene mutations that are driving that dysfunction, and then we can take models that have that mutation and try to fix them.
Q: How do you find these mutations?
A: It’s a two-step process. First, we are doing big data studies to identify mutations, and then we bring it down to a molecular level — replicating those mutations in cells — to see what they’re actually doing, and trying to find the mechanism.
Q: What is the most exciting aspect of this work?
A: Most of the genetic studies that have been published have not looked at the mitochondrial DNA. There could be hundreds of really small mitochondrial genes that have been overlooked. We are looking at mutations in these small mitochondrial genes. It is exciting to see if we can look at this uncharted landscape, identify which small genes are important and eventually target treatments toward them.
The USC Leonard Davis School professor makes Time’s first annual list of the most influential people in health care.
Meet Mei-Lee Ney, the trailblazer behind the school’s transformative $20 million gift.
Shape Magazine recently quoted Eileen Crimmins on how Americans are staying younger longer. “We measured people’s biological age through different markers of good health and found that the pace of aging has slowed over the past 20 years,” said Crimmins.
USC Leonard Davis students traveled across Italy and Germany for a course exploring how ancient burial practices inform modern-day approaches to life and death.