Basic research for healthy ageing

Why do we age? How can we stay healthier as we age?
We live longer and longer but we pay a high price for it. Age is the main risk factor for the development of age-related diseases, such as dementia, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular diseases, Parkinson's disease and cancer. With our research we want to understand why almost all living beings age and become more susceptible to diseases in old age. At the same time, we are investigating which factors promote healthy ageing and how the ageing process can be influenced. To this end, we are investigating the molecular, genetic and evolutionary mechanisms underlying ageing. To do this, we use model organisms such as worms, fruit flies or mice on the one hand, and on the other hand we examine samples from patients in the clinic and conduct studies on long-lived families. In the long term, our basic research should make a decisive contribution to enabling people to age more healthily.