April AI Spotlight: Alice Kane, PhD
Alice Kane started as the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB)’s Ling/Obrzut Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2022. Alice completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in 2016. She began her postdoctoral training in the lab of Susan Howlett at Dalhousie University, before joining the lab of David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School. Alice’s current research program at ISB aims to investigate the biological determinants of frailty in both sexes, using an integrated approach across physiological, molecular and computational techniques.
Despite the fact that aging is a universal process, the kinetics of aging are highly heterogeneous – a notion that is quantitatively captured by the concept of frailty. The Kane Lab is interested in identifying biological determinants of frailty in order to understand more about the molecular underpinnings of frailty and aging, to develop predictive biomarkers of frailty, and to identify targets to delay or prevent frailty. We are particularly interested in developing models to predict current or future frailty, using longitudinal mouse studies that involve thorough characterization of health in aging (including metabolic outcomes!), and investigating sex differences in aging and frailty. Our most recent publication (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11529319/) highlights sex differences in gene expression across tissues in aging, and ongoing work is comparing aging in the cervicovaginal tract to systemic aging in both mice and humans.
Dr. Kane’s studies have utilized the UW NORC Energy Balance Core to perform repeated, longitudinal assessments throughout the lifespan of aging mice. This includes comprehensive measures of energy homeostasis including energy expenditure, energy intake, substrate utilization and ambulatory activity using indirect calorimetry, along with body composition analysis (i.e. fat mass and lean body mass).
To learn more about Dr. Kane’s research publications, click here