Aging and End-of-life: from flies to human beings

Michael RERA, a researcher at the Functional and Adaptive Biology unit (BFA) of Université Paris Cité and CNRS, strives to understand aging: its causes, consequences and evolution.

He has been developing a two-phase aging model since the first description of the Smurf phenotype in Drosophila (Drosophila melanogaster). His research project is resolutely transdisciplinary, at the crossroads of fundamental biology, genetics, physiology, bioinformatics and mathematical modeling.

He presents the general issues involved in defining aging, the discovery of Smurfs in Drosophila and how this end-of-life phenotype has enabled the re-conceptualization of aging as a discontinuous phenomenon, which his team has validated in nematode, zebrafish and mouse. He explains what this re-conceptualization implies for our understanding of human aging.

His colleague Clément DUBOST is head of the intensive care unit at the Hôpital d'Instruction des Armées Bégin. He and his team are interested in the objective and reproducible quantification of consciousness disorders, whether induced (general anesthesia) or in intensive care patients. In this webinar, he presents the BlueRéa clinical trial, which started in January 2025 and aims to validate the aging model.

This webinar is available on our youtube channel and on a dedicated page on our website.