Aditi U. Gurkar, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of Medicine

Education & Training

  • B.S. University of South Florida, Florida International University
  • Ph.D. Boston University School of Medicine, Cell and Molecular Biology
  • Post-doc Harvard Medical School/Broad Institute (Autophagy, Cancer, Aging); The Scripps Research Institute (Aging)

Research Interest Summary

Our lab is interested in understanding the role of DNA damage and cellular senescence in aging and age-related pathologies.

Research Categories

Research Interests

Our laboratory focuses on the mechanisms by which DNA damage promotes cellular senescence, aging and onset of age-related diseases. Our major research focuses on two inter-connected themes: (1) understanding the metabolic mechanisms that drive cellular senescence and aging (2) identifying novel detection and interventional approaches to delay senescence-driven age-related pathologies.

The goal is to define interventions that can improve health and quality of life. Our lab uses C. elegans, mice, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSc) and patient samples to understand the basic biology of aging.

Representative Publications

Marchal L, Karthikappallil R, Shinglot H,Hamsanathan S and Gurkar AU. Characterization of healthspan in distinct DNA repair mutants in C. elegans Mechanisms of Ageing and Development Sep 22;200:111573. doi: 10.1016/j.mad.2021.111573.

Hamsanathan S, Anthonymuthu T, Han S., Shinglot H, Siefken E, Sims A, Sen P, Pepper HL, Snyder NW, Bayir H, Kagan V and Gurkar AU$. Integrated -omics approach reveals persistent DNA damage rewires lipid metabolism and histone hyperacetylation via MYS-1/Tip60. Science Advances 2022 $: corresponding author. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abl6083

Gurkar AU, Robinson AR, Cui Y, Li X, Allani SK, Webster A, Muravia M, Fallahi M, Weissbach H, Robbins PD, Wang Y, Kelley EE, St. Croix CM, Niedernhofer LJ and Gill MS. Dysregulation of DAF-16/FOXO3-mediated stress responses acceleratesoxidative DNA damage induced aging. Redox Biol. 2018; doi: 10.1016/j.redox.2018.06.005.

Zhao J, Zhang L, Lu A, Han Y, Colangelo D, Bukata C, Scibetta A, Yousefzadeh MJ, Li X, Gurkar AU, McGowan SJ, Angelini L, O'Kelly R, Li H, Corbo L, Sano T, Nick H, Pola E, Pilla SPS, Ladiges WC, Vo N, Huard J, Niedernhofer LJ and Robbins PD. ATM is a key driver of NF-κB-dependent DNA-damage-induced senescence, stem cell dysfunction and aging. Aging. 2020; doi: 10.18632/aging.102863

Culley MK, Zhao J, Tai YY, Tang Y, Perk D, Negi V, Yu Q, Woodcock CC, Handen A, Speyer G, Kim S, Lai YC, Satoh T, Watson AM, Aaraj YA, Sembrat J, Rojas M, Goncharov D, Goncharova EA, Khan OF, Anderson DG, Dahlman JE, Gurkar AU, Lafyatis R, Fayyaz AU, Redfield MM, Gladwin MT, Rabinovitch M, Gu M, Bertero T, Chan SY. Frataxin deficiency promotes endothelial senescence in pulmonary hypertension. J Clin Invest. 2021 Jun 1;131(11):e136459. doi: 10.1172/JCI136459.

Li Y, Kračun D,  Dustin CM, El Massry M, Yuan S,  Goossen CJ,  DeVallance E, Sahoo S, St. Hilaire C,  Gurkar AU, Finkel T,  Straub A,  Cifuentes-Pagano E and Pagano PJ. Forestalling Age-Impaired Angiogenesis and Blood Flow by Targeting NOX1; Interleukin-6 and SASP Potentiate Feed-forward Control of Cell Senescence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S AI. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2015666118.

Yousefzadeh MJ, Zhao J, Bukata C, Wade EA, McGowan SJ, Angelini L, Bank MP, Gurkar AU, McGuckian CA, Calubag M, Kato JI, Burd CE, Robbins PD and Niedernhofer LJ. Tissue specificity of senescent cell accumulation during physiological and accelerated aging of mice. Aging Cell. 2020; doi: 10.1111/acel.13094.

Martinez BA, Rodrigues PR, Mondal P, Medina RN, Harrison N, Lone MA, Webster A, Gurkar AU, Grill B and Gill MS. An alternatively spliced insulin receptor modulates insulin sensitivity via insulin peptide sequestration in C. elegans. eLife. 2020; doi: 10.7554/eLife.49917

Hamsanathan S, Anthonymuthu T, Prosser D, Lokshin A, Greenspan SL, Resnick NM, Perera S, Narasimhan G and Gurkar AU$. A Molecular Index for Biological Age identified from the Metabolome and Senescence-associated Secretome in Humans. (Nature Aging) preprint available: Research Square doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-62559/v1; Aug 2020

Niedernhofer LJ, Gurkar AU, Wang Y, Vijg J, Hoeijmakers J. and Robbins PD. Nuclear genomic instability and aging. Annual Review of Biochemistry; 2018; doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-062917-012239

Full List of Publications