Dame Linda Partridge is Weldon Professor of Biometry at the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London. She is also Director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at UCL and Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing. Amongst her numerous appointments and awards she was elected to the Royal Society in 1996, the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004, and was awarded the Linnean Society of London’s prestigious Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2009. She directs the Partridge Laboratory at UCL.
“The aim of our research is to discover genes and mechanisms that determine the rate of ageing. We collaborate with other laboratories to determine if these processes show evolutionary conservation. Most of our work is conducted with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster through comparison with C.elegans and then with the mouse. Our work focuses particularly on the insulin/IGF-like signalling pathway, dietary restriction and resistance to stress. We are interested also in the physiological mechanisms that force organisms to make trade-offs, such as that between high nutrient intake and high reproductive rate, on one hand and slow ageing on the other.”
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iha/Linda_Partridge/Partridge_Laboratory
About this lecture:
Research into ageing has been rejuvenated by the discovery that genetic alterations extend the lifespan of laboratory animals. These mutations keep animals healthy for longer and protect them from many of the diseases of ageing. Professor Partridge will look at how this and other discoveries have led to a new wave of research directed at understanding how these changes can increase healthy lifespan in humans.
