Jan Vijg, Ph.D., is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Genetics of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1987. Over the years, he has been working in TNO Institute; Harvard Medical School; Beth Israel Hospital; University of Texas Health Science Center; Buck Institute for Research on Aging, at currently Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Prof Vijg is an international renowned expert in aging field focusing on genome instability, the tendency of the genome to acquire mutations and epimutations, that underlies human genetic disease, causally contributes to cancer and has also been implicated in aging and age-related, degenerative conditions other than cancer. Little is known about the mechanisms that give rise to spontaneous changes in the genome or epigenome and how this may lead, in somatic cells, to increased cancer risk and loss of organ and tissue function with age. He study genome and epigenome instability as a function of age in various model organisms, including mouse and fruit fly, and its consequences in terms of alterations in tissue-specific patterns of gene regulation. His lab developed transgenic reporter systems in mouse and fruit fly, which allow us to determine tissue-specific frequencies of various forms of genome instability, e.g., point mutations, deletions, translocations. By crossing the mutational reporter animals with mutants harboring specific defects in various genome maintenance pathways, the relevance of these pathways for the accumulation of specific forms of genome instability is assessed, in relation to the pathophysiology of aging. Similarly, by using knockdown approaches we assess the effect of specific genes implicated in longevity and healthy aging, e.g., SOD, FOXO, SIR2, on genome integrity. More recently, He has assessed global gene mutation and epimutation loads in normal and disease tissues of both animal models and humans using massively parallel sequencing approaches. He recent examined human aging record and estimated the maximal human age. Selected publications: 1: Dong X, Milholland B, Vijg J. Evidence for a limit to human lifespan. Nature. 2016 Oct 5;538(7624):257-259. 2: White RR, Vijg J. Do DNA Double-Strand Breaks Drive Aging? Mol Cell. 2016 Sep 1;63(5):729-38. 3: Gravina S, Dong X, Yu B, Vijg J. Single-cell genome-wide bisulfite sequencing uncovers extensive heterogeneity in the mouse liver methylome. Genome Biol. 2016 Jul 5;17(1):150. 4: White RR, Milholland B, de Bruin A, Curran S, Laberge RM, van Steeg H, Campisi J, Maslov AY, Vijg J. Controlled induction of DNA double-strand breaks in the mouse liver induces features of tissue ageing. Nat Commun. 2015 Apr 10;6:6790. 5: McMurray CT, Vijg J. Editorial overview: Molecular and genetic bases of disease: the double life of DNA. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2014 Jun;26:v-vii. 6: Vijg J. Somatic mutations, genome mosaicism, cancer and aging. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2014 Jun;26:141-9. 7: Gorbunova V, Seluanov A, Zhang Z, Gladyshev VN, Vijg J. Comparative genetics of longevity and cancer: insights from long-lived rodents. Nat Rev Genet. 2014 Aug;15(8):531-40. 8: Vijg J, Suh Y. Genome instability and aging. Annu Rev Physiol. 2013;75:645-68. 9: Suh Y, Vijg J. The long and short of fertility and longevity. Cell Metab. 2010 Sep 8;12(3):209-10. 10: Kapahi P, Vijg J. Aging--lost in translation? N Engl J Med. 2009 Dec 31;361(27):2669-70. 11: Garinis GA, van der Horst GT, Vijg J, Hoeijmakers JH. DNA damage and ageing: new-age ideas for an age-old problem. Nat Cell Biol. 2008 Nov;10(11):1241-7. 12: Longo VD, Lieber MR, Vijg J. Turning anti-ageing genes against cancer. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2008 Nov;9(11):903-10. 13: Vijg J, Campisi J. Puzzles, promises and a cure for ageing. Nature. 2008 Aug 28;454(7208):1065-71. Review. 14: Garcia AM, Derventzi A, Busuttil R, Calder RB, Perez E Jr, Chadwell L, Dollé ME, Lundell M, Vijg J. A model system for analyzing somatic mutations in Drosophila melanogaster. Nat Methods. 2007 May;4(5):401-3. 15: Khrapko K, Vijg J. Mitochondrial DNA mutations and aging: a case closed? Nat Genet. 2007 Apr;39(4):445-6. 16: Bahar R, Hartmann CH, Rodriguez KA, Denny AD, Busuttil RA, Dollé ME, Calder RB, Chisholm GB, Pollock BH, Klein CA, Vijg J. Increased cell-to-cell variation in gene expression in ageing mouse heart. Nature. 2006 Jun 22;441(7096):1011-4. 17: Vijg J, Suh Y. Ageing: chromatin unbound. Nature. 2006 Apr 13;440(7086):874-5. 18: Vijg J, Suh Y. Genetics of longevity and aging. Annu Rev Med. 2005;56:193-212. Review. 19: Hasty P, Campisi J, Hoeijmakers J, van Steeg H, Vijg J. Aging and genome maintenance: lessons from the mouse? Science. 2003 Feb 28;299(5611):1355-9. Review. 20: Hasty P, Vijg J. Aging. Genomic priorities in aging. Science. 2002 May 17;296(5571):1250-1.