Epigenetic Clocks in Patients with Cancer with Dr. Christin Burd

Cancer acts as an accelerator of aging. Furthermore, we know that cancer and cancer therapies can elicit aging-associated cognitive phenotypes and reveal or exacerbate underlying cognitive deficits, increase the risk of physical impairment, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic health conditions, and accelerate the hallmarks of aging. 

Dr. Christin Burd and her team, from The Ohio State University, have been asking key questions about just that… age-acceleration in cancer. To understand this further, they have been researching cancer therapies, T cells, senescence, and p16 and how they are related to epigenetic aging. 

T cells, senescence, and p16 are all known to play important roles in cancer development and progression. T cells are key players in the immune system's response to cancer, while senescence is a process that limits the proliferation of damaged cells and is implicated in aging and cancer. P16 is a tumor suppressor gene that is often mutated in cancer cells. By studying the relationship between epigenetic clocks and these key factors, we hope to gain a better understanding of how cancer cells develop and progress, as well as how they may be treated. Aging biomarkers, including epigenetic clocks, may provide important answers to some of the most pressing questions in cancer research today.

In this week’s Everything Epigenetics podcast, Dr. Christin Burd speaks with me about the importance of biomarkers and epigenetic clocks for older adults with cancer, as epigenetic clocks are currently not trained on cancer populations. We also discuss the development of a new ‘p16INK4a epi-clock’ (that I am most excited about) which may allow for the measurement of different aspects of aging using the same platform. 

Being an educator at The Ohio State University, Dr. Burd is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in science. Dr. Burd continues to focus her research on identifying mechanisms to prevent melanoma and improve clinical outcomes in older adults with cancer.

In this episode of Everything Epigenetics, you’ll learn about: 
- How Dr. Burd became interested in cancer and what led her to the career she has today
- Aging as a risk factor for cancer 
- What cancer therapies are causing aging and how that process can be mitigated 
- The collaboration between TruDiagnostic and Dr. Burd’s team
- Ohio State’s CARE Clinic
- The main mission of Dr. Burd’s ;lab 
- Why we need biomarkers for older adults with cancer
- Using T cells to measure Epigenetic Age
- How T cell Epigenetic Age relates to clinical measures of faulty, cognitive decline, and toxicity risk
- Details of the cohort Dr. Burd is investigating
- How cancer therapies are related to Epigenetic Age
- How cancer patients Epigenetic Age relates to outcomes 
- Senescence markers and how they are involved in Dr. Burd’s

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Thank you for joining us at the Everything Epigenetics Podcast and remember you have control over your Epigenetics, so tune in next time to learn more about how to harness this knowledge for your benefit.