Saul Villeda, PhD

Assistant Professor
Department of Anatomy
Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research
+1 415 502-1929

The ability to reverse aging in the brain may enable us to sidestep the effects of aging that promote vulnerability to neurodegenerative diseases, providing a unique and unexplored therapeutic approach. We have recently shown that systemic manipulations such as heterochronic parabiosis or young blood administration can partially reverse age-related impairments in regenerative, synaptic and cognitive functions in the aged brain. Interestingly, heterochronic parabiosis studies revealed an age-dependent bi-directionality in the influence of the systemic environment indicating pro-youthful factors in young blood elicit rejuvenation while pro-aging factors in old blood drive pre-mature aging. Therefore, targeting pro-aging factors in old blood may provide an alternative approach to rejuvenate aging phenotypes. Our lab is interested in understanding what drives regenerative and cognitive impairments in the aging brain, and how the effects of aging can be reversed in the old brain. Ultimately, our goal is to elucidate cellular and molecular mechanisms that promote brain rejuvenation as a means by which to combat age-related neurodegeneration and cognitive dysfunction.

Research Summary
Mechanisms of Brain Aging and Rejuvenation

Publications

Brain aging rejuvenation factors in adults with genetic and sporadic neurodegenerative disease.

Brain communications

Casaletto KB, Saloner R, Kornak J, Staffaroni AM, Villeda S, Paolillo E, VandeBunte AM, Cadwallader CJ, Lario Lago A, Webb J, Chen C, Rascovsky K, Miyagawa T, Ramos EM, Masdeu JC, Pantelyat A, Tartaglia MC, Bozoki A, Pressman PS, Rademakers R, Kremers W, Darby R, Younes K, Pascual B, Ghoshal N, Lapid M, Mackenzie IRA, Li J, Hsiung GR, Hall JN, Yutsis MV, Litvan I, Henderson VW, Sivasankaran R, Worringer K, Domoto-Reilly K, Synder A, Loureiro J, Kramer JH, Heuer H, Forsberg LK, Rosen HJ, Boeve B, Rojas JC, Boxer AL

A maternal brain hormone that builds bone.

Nature

Babey ME, Krause WC, Chen K, Herber CB, Torok Z, Nikkanen J, Rodriguez R, Zhang X, Castro-Navarro F, Wang Y, Wheeler EE, Villeda S, Leach JK, Lane NE, Scheller EL, Chan CKF, Ambrosi TH, Ingraham HA

Reply to 'Lactate as a major myokine and exerkine'.

Nature reviews. Endocrinology

Chow LS, Gerszten RE, Taylor JM, Pedersen BK, van Praag H, Trappe S, Febbraio MA, Galis ZS, Gao Y, Haus JM, Lanza IR, Lavie CJ, Lee CH, Lucia A, Moro C, Pandey A, Robbins JM, Stanford KI, Thackray AE, Villeda S, Watt MJ, Xia A, Zierath JR, Goodpaster BH, Snyder M

Exerkines in health, resilience and disease.

Nature reviews. Endocrinology

Chow LS, Gerszten RE, Taylor JM, Pedersen BK, van Praag H, Trappe S, Febbraio MA, Galis ZS, Gao Y, Haus JM, Lanza IR, Lavie CJ, Lee CH, Lucia A, Moro C, Pandey A, Robbins JM, Stanford KI, Thackray AE, Villeda S, Watt MJ, Xia A, Zierath JR, Goodpaster BH, Snyder MP