Welcome to the Biology of Aging Investigation lab!We are interested in understanding: How animals age? Our main research goal is to decipher the contributing factors (e.g. hormones) that regulate tissue aging.
One of the cellular protective mechanisms that we are interested in studying is called "autophagy". This process is known to be altered during aging. We aim to dissect the molecular basis for age-dependent dysregulation of autophagy and its contribution to tissue homeostasis during animal aging. In addition, we have began to investigate the mitochondrial and peroxisomal stress pathways and their role in ROS homeostasis. By elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging and uncovering the secret of Fountain of Youth, we hope that we can find ways to prevent age-associated diseases and prolong the healthspan of global aging population. “However, the best anti-aging practice might be surprisingly simple: Eat less, Exercise, Be happy.”
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Lab News
03/15/2021
Mark’s non-coding RNA and spermatogenesis story has been published in G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics. Congratulations!! 3/10/2021 New rotation student, Ankur Kumar, joins the lab. Welcome! 2/25/2021 New rotation student, Jacinta Correia, joins the lab. Welcome! 2/9/2021 Pham's abstract was selected for a platform (oral) presentation at the 62nd Annual Drosophila Research Conference. Congratulations!! 2/2/2021 Good news!! Our NSF CAREER award is funded!! This newly funded award will allow to investigate how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to malfunctioned peroxisomes. We hope our research will lead to the discover of novel "peroxisomal stress response" pathways. 2/1/2021 New rotation student, Thomas Burns, joins the lab. Welcome! 1/27/2021 New publication from former graduate student Allison Birnbaum! The study uncovered an important role of FOXO in aging neuromuscular junction (NMJ) in Drosophila. Congratulations!! 1/11/2021 James Yegerlehne joins the lab as a undergraduate research assistant. Welcome Jim! 1/11/2021 Pham Vo joins us again as a research technician. Welcome back! 11/10/2020 Kerui Huang successfully defended her thesis today (virtually). Congratulations!! 10/26/2020 Kai Chang successfully defended her thesis today (virtually). Congratulations!! 10/24/2020 Dr. Bai presented our peroxisome work at 2020 Midwest Drosophila Conference (Virtual). 10/22/2020 New review article on liver-heart communication published today! 10/16/2020 Dr. Bai presented our newest CRISPR screening work at GDCB department seminar (Virtual). 9/23/2020 Dr. Bai presented at 2020 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conference- Mechanisms of Aging (Virtual). 08/25/2020 Vishesh Bhatia joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome! 08/17/2020 Maggie Sodders joins the lab as a Master graduate student. Welcome! 08/14/2020 Graduate student Ting Miao received the 2020 Kalman/AFAR Scholarships for Research in the Biology of Aging. Congratulations!!! 08/03/2020 Our undergraduate trainee Dongyeol received a Dean’s High Impact Award for Undergraduate Research. Congratulations!! 6/26/2020 Allison's last day working with us. She will start her postdoc at University of Alabama Birmingham in July. We wish her best of luck with her new position and a successful career!! 6/10/2020 The news release on our peroxisome paper is also online now at ISU News!! Thanks to Fred Love at ISU News Service for the nice article. 6/10/2020 Our peroxisome aging and liver-heart communication paper is finally online today at Nature Communications!！ Thanks for the excellent work from my graduate student Kerui Huang, and our wonderful collaborators Francesca Di Cara and Andrew Simmonds. 5/13/2020 Dr. Bai presented our peroxisome aging work at Aging Science Talks (Virtual). It was a fun experience and lots of audience from all over the world. 04/16/2020 Kerui received 2020 Spring Research Assistantship Award (REX) today. Congratulations!! 04/16/2020 The first PhD student from the lab, Allison Birnbaum, successfully defended her thesis today (remotely/virtually). Congratulations!! 04/14/2020 Our peroxisome aging and liver-heart communication paper finally gets accepted by Nature Communications today!! It was a great honor and pleasure to working with Di cara Lab and Simmonds Lab. 04/14/2020 We have a preprint posted in bioRxiv about the role of FOXO in the regulation of NMJ morphology and late endosome during fly aging. 02/09/2020-02/14/2020 Dr. Bai attended and presented at 2020 Keystone Symposium on Aging at Vancouver, Canada. 01/18/2020 Congratulations to our undergraduate student Rachel Mehmert, who was recently selected to present her research at 2020 National Council on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at Montana State University. Her abstract was chosen from more than 4,000 submissions!! 01/16/2020 Undergraduate student Dongyeol Lee joins the lab. Welcome! 01/11/2020 Thanks Ames Tribune for highlighting our cardiac aging work!! Katie Mauch at Ames Tribune wrote a great article for us. Thank you Katie. 01/07/2020 Nice news release on our Autophagy paper is online now at ISU News!! Thanks to Fred Love at ISU News Service for the nice article. 12/30/2019 Our Autophagy paper is online Now!! Congratulations to Kai and Ping!! Also thanks for the great help from our collaborators: Ioannis P. Nezis, Rolf Bodmer, and Karen Ocorr. In this study, we identified activin-mediated inhibition of mTORC2 as a novel mechanism for age-dependent decline of autophagy and cardiac health in Drosophila. 12/03/2019 Kerui received a one-year AHA predoctoral fellowship. Congratulations!! 11/21/2019 Rotation student Mahsa Askary Hemmat joins the lab. Welcome! 11/15/2019 Mark passed his preliminary exam today. Congratulations! 11/04-11/05/2019 The lab attended the fist Midwest Aging Consortium (MAC) Symposium at McNamara Alumni Center of the University of Minnesota. Dr. Bai talked about our peroxisome and cardiac aging work. Kai won the poster prize again. Congrats!! 11/02-11/03/2019 The Bai Lab and McNeill lab had a road trip together to 2019 Midwest Drosophila Conference. All students did great jobs in presenting their work. Ting was selected to give an oral presentation. Kai's poster presentation won second prize. 10/21/2019 Rotation student Sean McLaughlin joins the lab. Welcome! 10/12/2019 Dr. Bai presented at the first GDCB Research Day. 10/03/2019 Dr. Bai was invited to speak at the department seminar of the Department of Physiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. 09/19/2019 Dr. Bai was invited to speak at the seminar series of the Department of Physiology at Wayne State University, School of Medicine. 09/17/2019 Undergraduate student Jamie Cook joins the lab. Welcome! 09/01/2019 Two rotation students, Peiduo Liu and McKenzie Wishman, join the lab. Welcome! 08/31/2019 Undergraduate student Guillermo Requejo joins the lab. Welcome! 08/12/2019 Olympus FV3000 is installing this week....!!! 08/09/2019 Qiuhan is leaving the lab to join the BCB graduate program at ISU. We are grateful for her contributions to the lab. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors. 07/14-07/19/2019 Dr. Bai attended and presented at 2019 Biology of Aging Conference at Newry, ME. 06/30-07/06/2019 Dr. Bai and Ping attended and presented at 2019 Insect Hormones Workshop at Kolymbari, Crete. 06/03/2019 Our recent work demonstrates that peroxisome dysfunction is a novel cause of aging (not just the consequence of aging). We also show that defective peroxisomal import in aged liver signals to the heart via the pro-inflammatory cytokine Upd3/IL-6 to accelerate cardiac aging. See our preprint for more details. https://doi.org/10.1101/659128. 05/02/2019 Dr. Bai participated the 1st Midwest Aging Consortium meeting. 05/01/2019 Dr. Bai received 2019 GDCB Early Achievement in Research Award. 04/23/2019 Allison passed her preliminary exam. Congratulations! 04/17/2019 Rachel Mehmert presented her autophagy work at 2019 ISU Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expressions. 04/06/2019 Kerui and Ting represented the lab t speak at 2nd ISU Symposium for Cellular Organelles. 03/31/2019 Our undergraduate Rachel Mehmert received 2019 Dean's High Impact Award for Undergraduate Research. Congratulations!! 03/27-03/31/2019 Kerui and Ting attended and presented at the 60th Annual Drosophila Research Conference at Dallas, TX. Kerui was selected to give an oral presentation. 03/21/2019 Allison’s paper on FOXO ChIP-Seq has been recently accepted by Frontiers in Genetics, Genetics of Aging. Congratulations!! And thanks for the help of our collaborators: Xiaofen Wu, Nan Liu, and Marc Tatar. 03/12/2019 Our review article on organelle aging is now accepted by Journal of Genetics and Genomics. This is our first attempt to summarize what we know about the structural and functional changes in five well-studied organelles during normal aging. Thank you for the hard work from Mark, Kerui and Ping. 03/11/2019 Dr. Jinoh Kim joins the lab as a postdoctoral research associate. Welcome! 01/13/2019 Kai presented her work on mTORC2 at Keystone Symposia: Mitochondria in Aging and Age-Related Disease. 1/11/2019 We were awarded our first R01 grant from National Institute on Aging (NIA). The award will allow us to study the molecular mechanisms underlying cardiac aging, as well as autophagy regulation. 12/12/2018 Our oenocyte translatome (RiboTag) paper is accepted by BMC Genomics. Thank you Kerui and our collaborators for the great work! 12/06/2018 Kerui passed her preliminary exam. Congratulations! 11/28/2018 Kai passed her preliminary exam. Congratulations! 11/08/2018 Kai received a two-year AHA predoctoral fellowship. Congratulations!! 10/04/2018 Dr. Bai presented our work on activin/mTOR2 and cardiac aging at 2018 Cold Spring Harbor conference-Mechanisms of Aging. 8/24/2018 Undergraduate student Seth Millikan joins the lab. Welcome! 7/2/2018 Ting Miao officially joins the lab as a PhD graduate student. Welcome! 4/11-4/15/2018 Dr. Bai, Kerui, Allison and Mark presented at the 59th Drosophila Research Conference, Philadelphia PA. 4/6/2018 Axelle successfully defended her Master thesis, entitled "The Power of GWAS: Leveraging Genome Wide Association Studies to identify Novel Regulators of Autophagy in Drosophila melanogaster", Congratulations! 03/30/2018 Our coming undergraduate Zhitao Ming won Sui Tong Chan Fung Summer Internship in Genetics. Congratulations! 1/8/2018 Three undergraduate students join the lab. They are Emma Troyer, Rachel Mehmert, Immaculate Edwin. Welcome! 11/15/2017 Our Kr-h1 paper is accepted by Scientific Reports!!! 10/30/2017 Jacob Zobrist joins the lab for his second rotation. Welcome! 09/11/2017 Kaiser Arndt joins the lab as an undergraduate research assistant. Welcome! 08/28/2017 Ting Miao joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome! 06/05/2017-06/07/2017 Dr. Bai attended AFAR grantee conference and presented a poster on muscle aging research. 05/01/2017 Mark Bouska joins the lab after his rotations. Welcome! 04/21/2017-04/22/2017 Dr. Liu, Allison and Axelle attended and presented at 129th Iowa Academy of Science (IAS) Annual Meeting. 04/11/2017 Graduate student Kerui Huang receives the 2017 Glenn/AFAR Scholarship for Research on the Biology of Aging. Congratulations!!! 02/03/2017 Graduate student Kerui Huang is awarded a scholarship from the Graduate College. This scholarship was made possible by generous donations made to the Iowa State University Foundation. Congratulations! 01/17/2017 Undergraduate student Qiuhan Jiang joins the lab. Welcome! 11/28/2016 In the News Prolonging our 'healthspan' 09/26/2016 Dr. Bai attended CSHL aging conference and presented a poster on our cardiac aging research. 08/22/2016 Mark Bouska joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome! 08/15/2016 Kerui Huang and Axelle Weeger officially join the lab as graduate students. Welcome! 07/13/2016~07/17/2016 Bai Lab went to 2016 The Allied Genetics Conference in Orlando, Florida. Kai, Allison and Ping presented posters at the conference. 07/01/2016 We received 2016 AFAR Research Grant for Junior Faculty. Congratulations! 07/01/2016 Dr. Ying Liu, our new postdoc researcher, joins the lab. Welcome! 06/20/2016 Fahmo Mohamed, our 2016 George Washington Carver summer research intern, joins the lab. Welcome! 06/06/2016 Jazmine Real, our 2016 HHMI summer research intern, joins the lab. Welcome! 04/05/2016 Our undergraduate Sheridan Schwartz won Sui Tong Chan Fung Internship in Genetics. Congratulations! 03/07/2016 Allison Birnbaum joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome! 02/29/2016 We have our first demography (lifespan analysis) set up. Thank you Ping and all of the undergraduate students for your hard work! 02/29/2016 Interview with Iowa State Daily. http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_7b47c28c-dc0c-11e5-9aa3-cb70b5e13241.html 02/24/2016 Kai Chang joins the lab as a Laboratory Technician. she will join our IG2 graduate program in Fall 2016 with a F. Wendell Miller Fellowship. Congratulations! 02/16/2016 Our NIH-NIA R00 award finally came $$ (Project entitled, “Activin-Mediated Autophagy During Cardiac Aging") 02/10/2016 On GDCB departmental news. https://www.las.iastate.edu/new-gdcb-faculty-member-hua-bai-studies-how-animals-age/ 01/11/2016 Undergraduate students Audrey, Emily, Sheridan, Matt and Larsa join the lab. Welcome! 01/04/2016 The Bai Lab is officially established! We are located at 3238 Molecular Biology Building ( 'We' means myself and Assistant Scientist Ping). |
Trainee Fellowships & Grants
Graduate students Ting Miao 2020 Kalman/AFAR Scholarships for Research in the Biology of Aging 01/2020-02/2021 Kerui Huang American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship 01/2020-12/2020 Glenn/AFAR Scholarship for Research on the Biology of Aging 05/2017-10/2017 ISU Research Assistantship Award (REX) 2020 Spring Kai Chang American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship 01/2019-12/2020 ISU F. Wendell Miller Scholarship 2016-2019 Mark Bouska 2016 ISU Presidential Fellowship Allison Birnbaum 2019 ISU David Gladson Scholarship 2016 ISU Presidential Fellowship Undergraduate students Dongyeol Lee Dean's High Impact Award for Undergraduate Research, Fall 2020 Sui Tong Chan Fung Internship in Genetics, Summer 2020 Rachel Mehmert Dean's High Impact Award for Undergraduate Research, Fall 2019 Zhitao Ming Sui Tong Chan Fung Internship in Genetics, Summer 2018 Sheridan Schwartz Sui Tong Chan Fung Internship in Genetics, Summer 2016 |