Life from the Perspective of Aging: Dr. Susana Gonzalo and Research in Progeria

Progeria is a progressive genetic disorder that causes premature aging of children. Dr. Susana Gonzalo is a leading medical researcher of this disease. During this candid interview with the journalist Verónica Fuentes, we will learn about the latest advances in Dr. Gonzalo’s laboratory. In addition, she will describe her experience developing a long professional career in the United States and what are the most valuable lessons she has learned.

Susana Gonzalo, Ph.D. Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Saint Louis University School of Medicine Dr. Susana Gonzalo received her degree in Biology/Biochemistry from the “Universidad Complutense de Madrid” and a Ph.D. from Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM).

Under Dr. Linder’s leadership, she studied the role of post-translational modifications of neuronal proteins in their localization and function. After a short postdoc in Dr. Dean’s laboratory (WUSM) studying the retinoblastoma family of tumor suppressors, she received a NSF International Postdoctoral Fellowship and joined Maria Blasco’s team at CNIO, a top cancer research center in Spain. During these years the team demonstrated for the first time the epigenetic regulation of telomeres. In 2006, Dr. Gonzalo was recruited to WUSM as faculty of the Radiation Oncology Department, where she developed a research program studying the crosstalk between nuclear architecture, chromatin structure, and genome stability. In 2012, Dr. Gonzalo joined the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at St Louis University School of Medicine, where she is currently Professor.

Dr. Gonzalo’s research focuses on understanding how alterations of nuclear architecture contribute to the genomic instability that drives aging and cancer processes. Her studies are revealing essential roles for the structural nuclear proteins “lamins” in DNA repair, DNA replication, and telomere homeostasis, as well as in genome compartmentalization and mobility within the nuclear space. These findings, and the association of lamins dysfunction with degenerative disorders, premature aging, and cancer, provide evidence for lamins operating as “caretakers of the genome.” Dr. Gonzalo is currently focusing on Hutchinson Gilford Progeria Syndrome, a premature aging laminopathy, and cancers with the poorest prognosis, such as BRCA-mutated and triple negative breast cancers. Intriguingly, she finds similar alterations in cells from these aggressive cancers and in cells from HGPS patients. Importantly, Dr. Gonzalo discovered that calcitriol improves phenotypes in cells from breast cancer and HGPS patients. Her long-term goal is to characterize how these pathways contribute to disease in cells in vitro and in animal models in vivo, as well as their potential as targets for treatment of lamins-related diseases.

Verónica Fuentes Adrián SINC Editor Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology has a degree in Environmental Sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a master's degree in Journalism and Communication of Science, Technology and Environment from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Verónica Fuentes Adrián has a degree in Environmental Sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a master's degree in Journalism and Communication of Science, Technology and Environment from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

She began in journalism in the Science section of the EFE Agency. She has worked at SINC (Scientific News and Information Service) since its inception in 2008 as head of the biomedicine and health areas. She also collaborated on the RNE radio program ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’. In 2015, she won the Boehringer Ingelheim Prize for Journalism in Medicine in the digital category. In 2017, she received the second prize for the Roche Prize for Personalized Medicine in the written press category and in 2019