Professor Aziz Aboobaker : ‘Understanding stem cells and regeneration using the planarian model system’
GUEST SPEAKER
We are focused on leveraging planarian biology as a model with which to make fundamental insights into stem cell biology and regeneration. The pluripotent stem cell population of these animals allows them to regenerate entire animal from small starting fragments. These stem cells also provide amazing homeostatic capacity, allowing them to grow and de grow in response changing nutrient availability while retaining perfect scaling of all organs and tissues. An emergent property of this life history is that planarians also entirely avoid the biological ageing process and may effectively be immortal. I will present our work to understand the mechanisms that underpin key planarian life history processes and demonstrate that we can make novel insights relevant to human disease processes.
Date: 1 May 2015, 13:00 (Friday, 1st week, Trinity 2015)
Venue: Sherrington Building, off Parks Road OX1 3PT
Venue Details: The Large Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor
Speaker: Professor Aziz Aboobaker (Dept Zoology, University of Oxford)
Organising department: Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG)
Organiser: Sarah Noujaim (University of Oxford, Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics)
Organiser contact email address: sarah.noujaim@dpag.ox.ac.uk
Host: Dr Deborah Goberdhan (DPAG, University of Oxford)
Part of: DPAG Head of Department Seminar Series
Topics:
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Sarah Noujaim