Elizabeth A. Pollina, PhD

Washington University in St. Louis (WU)

Our team studies the mechanisms that preserve longevity and promote rejuvenation in the nervous system. Accumulating damage to neuronal genomes is an emerging hallmark of brain aging and neurodegeneration. Yet, we lack a fundamental understanding of how our highly specialized neurons repair genomic insults in vivo and how the dynamic stimuli neurons receive across a lifetime further impinge on the genome. The Pollina Lab leverages interdisciplinary tools from neuroscience, epigenetics, and DNA repair to uncover how long-lived cells of the brain protect their genomes in response to diverse physiological cues and its relevance to neurological disease.