New Nordic collaboration to reveal linked mechanisms of age-related fatty liver and muscle loss
More than half of over-60-year-olds suffer from more than one chronic disease, reducing their independence and quality of life. Two major factors that increase frailty are fatty liver disease and muscle loss (sarcopenia), affecting hundreds of millions globally. Yet no cure and effective preventive treatments exist. While these processes are well-studied individually, their combined underlying mechanisms remains unknown.
A highly competitive award of over 2 million euros from the Novo Nordisk Foundation will support a new Nordic research collaboration focused on uncovering the shared metabolic mechanisms linking age-related liver disease and muscle loss.
The ambitious EnerAGE project brings together world-leading expertise from Anu Suomalainen Wartiovaara and Thomas McWilliams (University of Helsinki) and Kei Sakamoto (University of Copenhagen). The team will draw on their combined experience in molecular metabolism, signaling and cellular quality control to investigate the previously unrecognized biological connection that may help explain why liver and muscle pathology frequently co-occur during aging. The project will combine cutting-edge cross-disciplinary approaches from discovery science to translational metabolism.
Uncovering these underlying mechanistic metabolic links may lead to actionable insights and interventions that promote healthy aging and prevent disease progression.
The new collaboration between and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (University of Copenhagen) and the SWAN spearhead (Sustainable wellbeing across life span) at University of Helsinki, connects leading Nordic researchers to accelerate innovation and train the next generation of scientists.
CBMR Vice Executive Director Professor Kei Sakamoto, says: “This ambitious and potentially transformative project can only succeed through close collaboration, bringing together synergistic expertise and complementary perspectives on the molecular mechanisms of age-related metabolic disease, across both basic and clinical research. I am excited to build a strong new bridge between research groups in Copenhagen and Helsinki and to deliver novel molecular and translational insights into these conditions.”
SWAN Director Professor Anu Wartiovaara. says: “This project is based on the early synergistic discoveries from the three groups, suggesting that part of metabolic pathways driving two distinct age-relate diseases, fatty liver and muscle wasting, may be shared. We will produce a fundamental understanding of such mechanisms with a high translational potential for the benefit of patients. I am truly excited to provide our translational and metabolism expertise for this important topic.
Our goal is to transform together the understanding of aging biology and promote healthy aging worldwide.”