Author Spotlight: Exploring the Impact of Trauma on Cellular Aging

Telomeres are repetitive nucleoprotein regions at chromosome ends that shorten each time cells divide, resulting in decreases in average telomere length across the lifespan. Our lab investigates the long-term and intergenerational impacts of trauma and adversity on cellular aging by measuring telomere length and population-based studies. Interest in telomere biology is expanding beyond measuring average telomere length.

New methods are being developed to assess chromosome specific telomere length and investigate links between health outcomes and other aspects of telomere biology, like telomere associated proteins and DNA damage. The interdisciplinary Telomere Research Network led by laboratory PI, Dr.Stacy Drury, works to enhance telomere measurement rigor and reproducibility by supporting international collaborative studies documenting the impact of pre-analytic factors on telomere assay precision, as well as establishing guidelines for the reporting of telomere length measurements generated using QPCR. The enhanced precision of MMQPCR allows for more granular analyses of the impacts of early adversity and life course environmental exposure on cellular aging, for example, by identifying periods of sensitivity where in exposures that occur during this time window produced more profound impacts on later life health outcomes.