Could DNA be linked to Premature Aging in Cancer Survivors?

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Thought Leaders. Dr. Zhaoming Wang, Epidemiology & Cancer Control. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

In this interview, we speak to Dr. Zhaoming Wang about his latest research that investigated accelerated aging in childhood cancer survivors and the underlying genetics causing this.

Please could you introduce yourself and tell us what inspired your latest research?

I’m an associate member of the faculty at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with a primary appointment with the Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control and a secondary appointment with the Department of Computational Biology. My aging biomarker research was originally inspired by my colleague, Dr. Kiri Ness, who was one of the first to report the aging acceleration phenomenon among survivors of childhood cancer.  

Over the last couple of years, we have collaborated and published our research demonstrating that aging biomarkers including leukocyte telomere length (https://aacrjournals.org/clincancerres/article/26/10/2362/82443/Shortened-Leukocyte-Telomere-Length-Associates ) and epigenetic age (https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-abstract/113/5/597/5911122?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false ) are implicated in age acceleration.  This latest publication is a third one along the line of my focused aging research.

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