Dr. Ming Xu

Cellular senescence is one of the major players contributing to the fundamental aging process. My lab is leveraging novel mouse models and primary human cells as tools to examine the role and underlying mechanism of senescent cells in various conditions in mammals, and we aim to find new drugs to target senescent cells in order to alleviate a range of diseases as a group.

We have three major research directions.

• To investigate the role of senescent cells in diseases. We are especially interested in diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, frailty, bone-related diseases, bladder dysfunction, and flu infection. We will be using novel transgenic mice and transplantation models for this.
• To reveal the heterogeneity and transcriptomic signatures of senescent cells in vivo. We will be using single cell transcriptome technology to look at the senescent cells at different tissues under different biological conditions (aging, obesity or injury).
• To screen for novel compounds to kill senescent cells. We are in the process of screening several libraries of compounds on human senescent cells, and expect to find a number of novel candidates. We will then further test these compounds in aged mice and human tissues.