The ultimate goal of The Jafari Lab is to improve healthspan and increase lifespan!
Healthspan Pharmacology
Slowing the aging process delays the progression of age-related diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease. The ultimate goal of our work is to improve healthspan and add healthy years to human life. Using fruit flies as our main model system, we have developed an algorithm and a number of bioassays to identify compounds that increased lifespan and improved healthspan. While some studies have shown that botanical extracts such as Rhodiola rosea and Rosa damascena may impact age-related diseases, there are large gaps in the human knowledge about the mechanisms through which these natural products modulate aging. Our research hopes to bridge that gap in knowledge.
OMIC-Machine Learning
The failure rate of traditional drug discovery methods is very high—a costly and time-consuming process. However, recent work with the model organism Drosophila has provided us with a new way to identify mechanisms of drug action, and thus potential side effects or alternative uses. With Drosophila, our lab has developed validated functional assays for the impact of natural products and pharmaceuticals on the focal and non-focal phenotypes, and we are now interested in developing and optimizing automated phenotypic assays: phenomics. Working with other researchers across the life sciences, our lab hopes to use powerful machine-learning techniques to identify the causal links between -omic differentiation and functional characteristics.
Educational Research
The rates of stress-induced mental and physical health disorders are increasing alarmingly among undergraduate students, with about a quarter of them showing one or more signs of mild to moderate mental-health distress. Increased expectations of mastery of high volumes of material, heightened reliance upon exams to determine course performance, and their own poor time management are significant sources of anxiety for the majority of students. However, it is essential for universities to provide students with effective tools to manage their emotional and psychological well-being for long-term academic success. Our work with diverse student populations and the Life101 course focuses on teaching undergraduate students how to handle stress and adopt a healthy lifestyle.
