University of Westminster hosts British Society for Research on Ageing conference

The conference included a satellite meeting of all 11 of the UK Ageing Networks (UKANet), a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) initiative to build capacity and links between otherwise disparate research groups across the UK. As part of the satellite meeting, a Policy Influencers event was hosted with representatives from the UKRI, honourable Members of Parliament and Lords Temporal and industry partners.

The main meeting involved 150 biogerontologists whose research spans basic science, theories of ageing, cellular and in vivo models to applications, treatment outcomes and working with older patients in clinical settings. Participants had the opportunity to participate in two workshops: Defining Healthspan and Ideas to Investment, as well as networking and poster sessions. 

Conference highlights included Professor Nick Lane’s public lecture on the origins of life and the resulting necessity of ageing, and keynote lectures by Professor James Kirkland of the Mayo Clinic on a career spent uncovering and understanding senescence as a process, and by Professor Vera Gorbanova of Rochester University on understanding longevity in long-lived species.

At the conference, BSRA announced the award of the Lord Cohen Medal to Professor Lynne Cox, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, for her outstanding achievements and contributions to understanding the biology of ageing. The Lord Cohen Medal is the premier award in the field of gerontology, the study of the biology of ageing. Its award is infrequent; this is the 15th awarded medal in the last 40 years. To be considered, a candidate must be judged to “have made a considerable contribution to ageing research, either through original discoveries or in the promotion of the subject of gerontology.”

Professor Cox’s lecture, Targeting Ageing – from Molecular Mechanisms to Clinical Interventions, covered her research career and work on understanding and inhibiting a process called senescence, or the loss of function in cells over time that may cause human ageing.

Dr Bradley Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Physiology at the University of Westminster and BSRA trustee, organised the conference. He said: “It was a huge amount of work to chair the BSRA conference committee, to put this conference together for the BSRA, and to arrange for a global array of speakers, but heartening to see some of the best minds globally in ageing research here at the University of Westminster for this four-day event.”

The University was well-represented at BSRA’s annual meeting. It was the first major event for the new Ageing Biology & Age-Related Diseases research group in the School of Life Sciences at the University. Members of this new group were represented by a panel on Healthspan chaired by Dr Bradley Elliott and four poster presentations. One was presented by Dr Daniel Brayson, Lecturer in Life Sciences.

Westminster students Iwona Burnet from the Biomedical Science MSc course and Noemi Cherestes from the Sports & Exercise Nutrition MSc course also presented the results of their Master’s theses research. Noemi Cherestes’s poster was awarded the runner up in the best early career poster presentation, with recognition by the conference and a £300 cash prize sponsored by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The fourth poster presentation from the University was by Natalia Reichel who graduated this year from the Biomedical Science BSc Honours course and presented the results of her Physiological Society-funded summer studentship research. 

Learn more about Biological and Biomedical Sciences courses at the University of Westminster. 

Noemi Cherestes, supervised by Bradley Elliott, presenting the results of her MSc research, and being awarded runner up in the best early career poster prize sponsored by the BBSRC by Professor David Weinkove, Chair of the BSRA.