Assistant Professor
Center for Cardiovascular and Muscular Diseases
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s true not just for people, but for our cells. My research explores hormesis, the phenomenon where mild, manageable stressors such as exercise, heat or dietary changes trigger powerful defense systems that help the body resist aging and disease.
One process especially responsive to hormesis is autophagy — the cell’s recycling system that clears away damaged components and keeps cells functioning at their best. Autophagy declines with age, but hormetic stressors can switch it back on, a promising way to boost resilience in multiple organs.
I want to discover exactly how hormesis improves autophagy and what other cellular processes benefit from it. By mapping these protective pathways, we could design targeted strategies to extend health spans and help people stay stronger, longer.