Sangchul Park

Method To Purify and Analyze Heterogeneous Senescent Cell Populations Using a Microfluidic Filter with Uniform Fluidic Profile

To precisely purify and study aged (senescent) cells, we have designed, fabricated, and demonstrated a novel diamond-structure (DS) microfluidic filter. Nonuniform flow velocities within the microfilter channel can compromise microfluidic filter performance, but with this new diamond structure, further optimized via simulation, we achieve a uniform microfilter flow field, improving the throughput of size-based separation of senescent cells, as obtained by 39-passaged human dermal fibroblasts. After separating these aged cells into two groups, consisting of large- and small-sized cells, we assessed senescence by measuring lipofuscin accumulation and β-galactosidase activity. Our results reveal that even though these senescent cells had been equivalently passaged in culture, a high degree of size distribution and senescent phenotype heterogeneity was observed. In particular, the smaller-sized cells tended to express a younger phenotype while the larger aged cells demonstrated an older phenotype. We suggest that size-based separation of senescent cells, subtyped into small- and large-sized cohorts, offers an alternative method to purify such aged cells, thereby enabling more precise study of the mechanisms of aging, autophagy impairment, and rejuvenation.

The eleventh Korea-Japan-Germany joint symposium on cancer and ageing research.

The Eleventh Korea–Japan Joint Symposium on Cancer and Ageing Research was held along with the first participation of German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) on July 5th–6th, 2012, at Gyeongju Hilton Hotel in Gyeongju, Korea. We greatly appreciate the communication between Professor Hirota Fujiki (Tokushima Bunri University) and Professor Otmar Whistler, the director of the DKFZ; three scientists from DKFZ participated in this symposium for the first time. This symposium was expanded from a bi-national to a tri-national joint meeting in this year. Prof. Fujiki delivered an opening address that included a short historical background introduction of this meeting and a remark on his conversation with Prof. Wiestler. Later, Prof. Hellmut Augustin kindly introduced DKFZ and the organization. Scientists in DKFG are organized into seven divisions depending on research programs covering most of the themes in oncology. Two main bodies, the Management Board and Board of Trustees, play a key role in DKFZ administration. This symposium included diverse types of studies from individual to a team-based integrative approach, including genomics, proteomics and potential therapeutics. We grouped the symposium presentations depending on their cancer or ageing research theme.