(20b) Microfluidic Platforms for Aging Studies

Aging is becoming a major challenge in today’s society. Lifespan has been dramatically increased; yet serious age-associated diseases significantly impact the quality of life at older age. Better understanding the aging process should shed light on disease prevention and on relevant environmental factors that could significantly improve quality of life at older age. Aging studies, however, pose significant technical challenges. These require long experimental length-scales, while acquiring longitudinal information is typically unfeasible.To address this problem, we have developed microfluidic platforms to perform aging studies in C. elegans.

The multicellular organism C. elegans has been widely studied as a model for multiple fundamental biological processes, ranging from gene silencing to apoptosis, metabolism, and neurogenesis. In particular, C. elegans has had a large impact in aging research. We have developed microfluidic platforms tailored for studying aging of the nervous system. This platform allows for lifelong longitudinal tracking of the same C. elegans population. Dedicated compartments allow lifelong culture and high-resolution live imaging of cellular (i.e., neurons) and subcellular (i.e., synapses) features. Importantly, this platform enables performing aging studies without traditionally used drugs that prevent reproduction. We are also developing microfluidic arrays to perform genetic screens on late-onset phenotypes. These arrays enable lifelong tracking of individual animals, while collecting progeny and thus allow performing forward genetic screens on late-onset (post-reproductive) phenotypes. These systems are part of a toolbox for quantitative aging research in C. elegans and should allow better understanding thus far elusive questions in longevity and age-associated disease.