Molecular Epidemiology
The section focuses on the degree of ageing, the increasing susceptibility to diseases (mainly cardiovascular disease (CVD) and osteoarthritis (OA)) with age, and the factors that promote healthy aging.
The research program is based on multidisciplinary research into aging with regard to expertise in (cell) biology / molecular genetics, chemistry, bioinformatics, medicine and epidemiology. The most important theme that connects these aspects of our research is the role of ageing in metabolic health and disease.
The group is involved in building publicly accessible reference datasets, research and data science infrastructures, developing methodology for the analysis of omics data and disease in vitro models for mechanistic analysis and preclinical studies.
Our Goal
The mission of the research being conducted within MolEpi is to monitor and understand factors that influence the risk of age-related disease (s) - aging - whether the inverse factors are involved in healthy aging. To this end, we generate and analyze state-of-the-art molecular data in human populations, families and groups of patients. In this context, we also focus on metabolic health and the relationship to cardiovascular disease and the musculoskeletal system. We mainly study groups of older individuals, but also look at biological mechanisms that contribute to early development, puberty and maturity, all of which are relevant to late disease risk. This research is anchored in themes and is conducted in five related research areas.