Seminário inserido no Festival Vida Saudável.

Professor Riccardo Marioni
School of Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences
Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine
University of Edinburgh

Biological clocks that correlate highly with chronological age may provide insight into the impact of lifestyle on rate of ageing, and improve the prediction of adverse health outcomes. Here, I will discuss biological clocks based on several measures including telomere length, glycans, transcriptomics, and epigenetics. The main focus of the presentation will be on the 'epigenetic clock', which utilises DNA methylation to predict chronological age. I will present an overview of the epigenetic clock, its derivation, and its associations with outcomes such as mortality, cognitive ability, and physical health. I will also discuss its relationship with other biological clocks, such as telomere length. The primary data sources for these analyses are two Scottish studies of ageing: the Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 (LBC1921, n~550) and 1936 (LBC1936, n~1,000). Both cohorts have concurrent DNA methylation and telomere measurements at three time points (ages 70, 73, and 76 in LBC1936 and ages 79, 87, and 90 in LBC1921).