P. Eline Slagboom

Professor P. Eline Slagboom, biologist by training, obtained her PhD at the Leiden University (NL) on genome instability and ageing.

Between ‘93 and 2000 she was group leader at the TNO Institute for applied sciences (Gaubius Institute) and was appointed in 2000 as professor of Molecular Epidemiology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

At LUMC she heads the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She is chair of the DUSRA – Dutch Society for Research on Ageing, professor at the Technical University Delft, member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne.

The studies of her group focus on biomarkers, especially metabolomics, and pathways of metabolic health, ageing and longevity.
Particular interest of her group is the genetics of longevity and development of molecular biomarkers for biological age, age-related disease/frailty and longevity. Her research into healthy ageing is based on the Leiden Longevity Study study cohort (PI Dr. Marian Beekman) and the BBMRI Metabolomics consortium. Further she is studying stimulation of healthy ageing by lifestyle intervention studies of older adults
(Growing Old Together study, GOTO) monitored by multi-omics and health based read outs. Studies in which she integrates stratification of those at risk and effective lifestyle interventions are performed especially in the VOILA (Vitality Oriented Innovations for the Lifecourse of the Ageing Society) public-private collaborative consortium of which Slagboom is PI.

www.molepi.nl , www.nvvvo.nl

Presentation

Metabolomics biomarkers in human ageing research monitoring risk and response to interventions.

 When we study phenotypes of biological ageing, we often explore physiological parameters, mortality, multimorbidity or longevity as endpoints. Biological age predictors have been generated in the past based on physiological read outs and clinical variables and the last
10 years many studies have added molecular data to this field.

I will discuss especially the study of metabolomics as biomarker indicating (multi)morbidity and mortality in population based studies. Scores generated from metabolomics data indicate vulnerability of older adults in the population and patients in geriatric clinical studies. Can such biomarker profiles be used as indicators of those at risk. Do interventions beneficially change the biomarkers and can this knowledge be of use in population health and the clinic.

We explored these issues in the BBMRI and VOILA consortia as proof of principle using the MetaboHealth score. We further explored the score in longevity families of the Leiden Longevity Study as potential early markers of biological age. Improvement of the score is explored using additional metabolomics platforms at the Netherlands Metabolomics Center.