Understanding Non-genetic Factors Associated with Healthy and Unhealthy Aging Using the PreClinical Studies in Aging Lab 

Webinar Description: This talk will discuss lessons learned from building an aging mouse colony, how to measure healthy/unhealthy aging in mice and who the immune system contributes to late-life health.Dr. Dawn Bowdish runs the PreClinical Studies in Aging Laboratory at McMaster University is Canada's only aging mouse facility that is dedicated to understanding non-genetic causes of healthy and unhealthy aging. The Bowdish lab has discovered that the microbes that live in our guts contribute to unhealthy aging and that chronic inflammation contributes to many late-life health conditions in a sex dependent manner. Ongoing studies are investigating the immune factors associated with frailty, how early life adversity impacts the aging trajectory and reasons why infections in mid- to late-life have lasting health consequences. 

Presenter: Dr. Dawn Bowdish, B.Sc., P.D.F., McMaster University

Dr Dawn Bowdish is a Professor at McMaster University, the Canada Research Chair in Aging & Immunity and the Executive Director of the Firestone Institute of Respiratory Health. Her lab studies how age-associated inflammation alters monocyte and macrophage development and function and how this ultimately increases susceptibility to respiratory infections while decreasing the effectiveness to vaccines for pneumonia and COVID-19. Her team also studies how the aging immune system and the microbiome interact and how this can contribute to healthy or unhealthy aging. She runs the Preclinical Studies in Aging Laboratory (www.psal.ca), and is on the Board of Directors of the Lung Health Foundation where she advocates to increase research funding for lung health and to increase lung health in older adults.

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