Biography

Dr. Judith Campisi strives to understand several fundamental aspects of the aging process. The Campisi laboratory works primarily with human and other mammalian cell cultures and mouse models to study the evolutionary, cellular and molecular relationships between aging, tumor suppressor mechanisms and the development of cancer. The laboratory also studies nuclear structures such as telomeres, and nuclear processes such as DNA repair and transcription, to understand how genetic and epigenetic damage leads to aging and cancer phenotypes. A recent focus of the Campisi lab is to identify links between mitochondrial function and cellular responses that can affect the development of aging phenotypes and age-related diseases in tissues and organisms.

Recent important discoveries made by the Campisi laboratory include the deleterious effects of senescent cells, including their ability to disrupt normal tissue structure and function and drive cancer progression; the striking difference between human and mouse cells in sensitivity to oxidative stress, which may explain the higher rate of aging and increased frequency of cancer in mice; the reversal of the senescent state in cultured cells (long thought to be impossible); the dualistic nature of telomeres, which can protect against senescence and cell death under certain stressful conditions but sensitize cells to oxidative and other stresses under other conditions.

Judith Campisi's Abstract