Karlseder Lab

The Karlseder lab focuses on understanding the roles of mammalian telomeres in the cell division process, on telomere metabolism during the cell cycle, and on the roles of telomeres in proliferative boundaries and cancer initiation. We are interested in the synergies between telomeres, innate immune signaling, inflammation and cellular aging, and how these pathways protect organisms from age-associated cancer initiation. We believe that a better understanding of the many pathways regulated by and synergizing with telomere function will allow us to prevent cancer initiation as function of age. Currently, we are working on these aspects of telomere biology:

• Regulation of proliferative boundaries
• Telomere replication
• Evolution of genome stability during cellular aging
• Telomere function, inflammation and autophagy
• Cancer prevention by telomere driven autophagy in vivo