Jan Vijg is the Lola and Saul Kramer Chairperson in Molecular Genetics at the Department of Genetics at the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine The Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a Private university, private medical school in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein is an independent degree-granting institution within the Montefiore Einstein Health System. Einstein hosts Doc ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, United States. Prior to this appointment, he was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

Buck Institute for Research on Aging The Buck Institute for Research on Aging is an independent biomedical research institute that researches aging and age-related disease. The mission of the Buck Institute is to extend the healthy years of life. The Buck Institute is one of nine cen ...

(

Novato, California Novato (Spanish language, Spanish for "Novatus") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, situated in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 c ...

). His research interests include studying genomic instability in aging. In 1989, he created the first transgenic mouse models for the study of ''in vivo'' mutagenesis. He discusses his genomic/epigenomic drift hypothesis as a cause of aging in his book ''Aging of the Genome: The Dual Role of DNA in Life and Death. In his second book, ''The American Technological Challenge: Stagnation and Decline in the 21st Century'', he argues that technological innovation has decelerated ever since 1970. Vijg is co-

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of the journal ''Aging'' published by Impact Journals (

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

Genome instability in aging and disease

Genome instability, i.e., the tendency of the genome to acquire mutations and epimutations, underlies human genetic disease, causally contributes to cancer and has also been implicated in aging and age-related, degenerative conditions other than cancer. Little is known about the mechanisms that give rise to spontaneous changes in the genome or epigenome and how this may lead, in somatic cells, to increased cancer risk and loss of organ and tissue function with age. We study genome and epigenome instability as a function of age in various model organisms, including mouse and fruit fly, and its consequences in terms of alterations in tissue-specific patterns of gene regulation. We developed transgenic reporter systems in mouse and fruit fly, which allow us to determine tissue-specific frequencies of various forms of genome instability, e.g., point mutations, deletions, translocations. By crossing the mutational reporter animals with mutants harboring specific defects in various genome maintenance pathways, the relevance of these pathways for the accumulation of specific forms of genome instability is assessed, in relation to the pathophysiology of aging. Similarly, by using knockdown approaches we assess the effect of specific genes implicated in longevity and healthy aging, e.g., SOD, FOXO, SIR2, on genome integrity. More recently, we have begun to assess global gene mutation and epimutation loads in normal and disease tissues of both animal models and humans using massively parallel sequencing approaches.

Books written

#''Aging of the Genome: The Dual Role of DNA in Life and Death'' #''The American Technological Challenge: Stagnation and Decline in the 21st Century''

Selected publications

* "Somatic mutations and aging: a re-evaluation." Vijg, J. ''Mutation Research'', 2000. * "Aging and genome maintenance: Lessons from the mouse?" Hasty, P; Campisi, J; Hoeijmakers, J; et al. ''Science'', 2003. * "A new progeroid syndrome reveals that genotoxic stress suppresses the somatotroph axis." Niedernhofer, Laura J.; Garinis, George A.; Raams, Anja; et al. ''Nature'', 2006. * "Increased cell-to-cell variation in gene expression in ageing mouse heart." Bahar, Rumana; Hartmann, Claudia H.; Rodriguez, Karl A.; et al. ''Nature'', 2006. * "Controlled induction of DNA double-strand breaks in the mouse liver induces features of tissue ageing." White, Ryan R.; Milholland, Brandon; de Bruin, Alain; et al. ''Nature Communications'', 2015. * "Interventions to Slow Aging in Humans: Are We Ready?" Longo, Valter D.; Antebi, Adam; Bartke, Andrzej; et al. ''Aging Cell'', 2015. * "Age-related somatic mutations in the cancer genome." Milholland, Brandon; Auton, Adam; Suh, Yousin; et al. ''Oncotarget'', 2015. * "Comprehensive transcriptional landscape of aging mouse liver." White, Ryan R.; Milholland, Brandon; MacRae, Sheila L.; et al. ''BMC Genomics'', 2015. * "DNA repair in species with extreme lifespan differences." MacRae, Sheila L.; Croken, Matthew McKnight; Calder, R. B.; et al. ''Aging'', 2015. * "Restricted diet delays accelerated ageing and genomic stress in DNA-repair-deficient mice." Vermeij, W. P.; Dolle, M. E. T.; Reiling, E.; et al. ''Nature'', 2016. * "Evidence for a limit to human lifespan." Dong, Xiao; Milholland, Brandon; Vijg, Jan. ''Nature'', 2016.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vijg, Jan American geneticists American science writers Albert Einstein College of Medicine faculty