JAX Frontend Platform

Research

The Nathan Shock Center has created a strong environment in which to conduct research on aging through the provision of state-of-the-art research resources. The Center's Research Cores provide care for mouse colonies (Animal Core), phenotyping of these animals (Health Span Core), and tracking and analysis of the resulting data (Statistical Core). The overall goal of the Image Analysis Core is to develop and provide resources for the geroscience community to aid in computer-assisted histopathological analysis and discovery of age-related histological feature. Together these Cores foster shared use and collaborative research, and are utilized by researchers within and outside of the Center.

The Nathan Shock Center has extensively characterized 32 commonly used inbred strains for aging-related phenotypes, greatly increasing the genetic diversity of the mouse models available for aging research. Center investigators have analyzed these data using complex trait methods pioneered at The Jackson Laboratory, including predictive quantitative trait loci (QTL) and haplotype association mapping (HAM) to support their independent, grant-funded research. This work has:

  1. accelerated genetic analyses of aging processes and disease
  2. uncovered lifespan loci
  3. revealed tantalizing correlations between lifespan and susceptibility for age-related disorders, such as osteoporosis and cancer
  4. provided evidence for concordance of genomic loci influencing lifespan and aging phenotypes between mouse and humans, suggesting promising leads for translational research.

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