About me
Jette is an Assistant Professor at HERM - MedH - Karolinska Institutet since 2023 and an Assistant Professor at the University of Helsinki (Finland) since 2021. Her research team is investigating how blood stem cells fail to maintain their functions during aging and disease.
Jette did her graduate studies at the ETH Zurich (Switzerland) focusing on asymmetric cell division in the lab of Yves Barral. Jette performed her postdoctoral studies at MIT (US) in the lab of Angelika Amon, where she discovered cellular enlargement as an aging factor of blood stem cells.
Twitter: @JetteLeng
Research description
The failure to regenerate tissues during aging due to loss of stem cell function causes major health problems. However, it is still unclear how stem cells fail to maintain their functions during aging and disease.
We discovered a new aspect of stem cell aging in vivo: cellular enlargement. We found that stem cells increase in size during aging and that this is causing their functional decline.
However, we are only beginning to understand how size impacts stem cell fitness and the physiological importance of this process remains unsolved.
Selected recent publications:
- Lengefeld J† and Zatulovskiy E†, “Cell Size Regulation: Molecular Mechanisms and Physiological Importance”, Frontiers Cell Dev Biol (2023)
- Davies D, van der Handel K, Bharadwaj S, Lengefeld J†, review “Cellular enlargement - a new hallmark of aging?“, Frontiers Cell Dev Biol (2022)
- Lengefeld J†, Cheng CW, Maretich P, Blair M, Hagen H, McReynolds MR, Sullivan E, Mayors K, Roberts C, Steiner J, Kang JH, Miettinen TP, Manalis SR, Antebi A, Rabinowitz JD, Morrison S, Lees J, Boyer L, Yilmaz O, Amon A “Cell size is a determinant of stem cell potential during aging“, Science Advances (2021)
- Neurohr G, Terry R, Lengefeld J, Bonney M, Brittingham G, Moretto F, Miettinen T, Pontano Vaites L, Soares L, Paulo J, Harper W, Buratowski S, Manalis S, van Werven F, Holt L, Novak B, Tyson J, Amon A† “Excessive cell growth causes cytoplasm dilution and contributes to senescence“, Cell (2019)