SEMINAR: Seeking the secret of longevity, deep in the sea

Abstract: Professor Pierre Blier -Seeking the secret of longevity, deep in the sea. Delineating the physiological and biochemical causes of aging process in the animal kingdom is a highly active area of research not only because of potential benefits for human health but also because aging process is related to life history strategies (growth and reproduction) and to responses of organisms to environmental conditions and stress. In this presentation, I advocate studying bivalve species as models for revealing the determinants of species divergences in maximal longevity. This taxonomic group includes the longest living metazoan on earth (Arctica islandica), which insures the widest range of maximum life span when shorter living species are also included in the comparative model. This model can also be useful for uncovering factors modulating the pace of aging in given species by taking advantages of the wide disparity of lifespan among different populations of the same species. For example, maximal lifespan in different populations of A islandica range from approximately 36 years to over 500 years. In the last 15 years, research has revealed that either regulation or tolerance to oxidative stress is tightly correlated to longevity in this group which support further investigations on this taxon to unveil putative mechanistic links between Reactive Oxygen Species and aging process.

Bio: Pierre Blier is Professor of Evolutionary Physiology at the Université du Québec à Rimouski in Canada. He obtained a PhD at Laval University in Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry and has been invited professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the “Institution des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpelleir and at the Linus Pauling Institute of Science. He is currently invited Scholar at Monash University. He has been interested in the evolution of mitochondria in animals (mostly ectotherms) for the last 30 years and worked on the links between evolution of mtDNA and mitochondrial phenotype. In the last 15 years he studied the mitochondrial characters potentially associated with lifespan animals.