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SUMMARY:Growing old yet staying young: do bats hold the secret of extended
  longevity? - Emma Teeling (University College Dublin)
DTSTART:20171128T130000Z
DTEND:20171128T140000Z
UID:TALK78831@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Professor Chris Jiggins
DESCRIPTION:Of all mammals\, bat possess the most unique and peculiar adap
 tations that render them as excellent models to investigate the mechanisms
  of extended longevity and potentially halted senescence. Indeed\, they ar
 e the longest-lived mammals relative to their body size\, with the oldest 
 bat caught being 41 years old\, living approx. 9.8 times longer than expec
 ted. Bats defy the ‘rate-of-living’ theories that propose a positive c
 orrelation between body size and longevity as they use twice the energy as
  other species of considerable size\, but live far longer. The mechanisms 
 that bats use to avoid the negative physiological effects of their heighte
 ned metabolism and deal with an increased production of deleterious Reacti
 ve Oxygen Species (ROS) is not known\, however it is suggested that they e
 ither prevent or repair ROS damage. Bats also appear to have resistance to
  many viral diseases such as rabies\, SARS and Ebola and have been shown t
 o be reservoir species for a huge diversity of newly discovered viruses. T
 his suggests that their innate immunity is different to other mammals\, pe
 rhaps playing a role in their unexpected longevity. Here the potential gen
 omic basis for their rare immunity and exceptional longevity is explored a
 cross multiple bat genomes and divergent ‘ageing’ related markers. A n
 ovel blood based population-level transcriptomics approach is developed to
  explore the molecular changes that occur in an ageing wild population of 
 bats to uncover how bats ‘age’ so slowly compared with other mammals. 
 This can provide a deeper understanding of the causal mechanisms of ageing
 \, potentially uncovering the key molecular pathways that can be eventuall
 y modified to halt\, alleviate and perhaps even reverse this process in ma
 n. 
LOCATION:Part II Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology \, Downing Street
 \, CB2 3EJ
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