Jan Karlseder

Jan Karlseder (born September 28, 1968, in Innsbruck) is an Austrian molecular biologist, a professor in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, the Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research^[1] and the holder of the Donald and Darlene Shiley Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Career[]

Karlseder obtained both his M.Sc. and his Ph.D. at the University of Vienna. In 1996, he joined the Laboratory of Titia de Lange at Rockefeller University in New York City for postdoctoral training. He became a faculty member at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 2002.^{[citation needed]}

Research[]

Karlseder discovered that telomere dysfunction plays a role in Werner Syndrome, a premature aging disease that is associated with early onset of cancer. WRN helicase, which is mutated in Werner Syndrome patients, is required for efficient replication of the telomeric G-strand.^[2] Without WRN, lagging strand replication frequently stalls at telomeres, leading to loss of one of the sister telomeres during replication and cell division. This telomere loss in turn can lead to telomere end-to-end fusions, fusion-bridge-breakage cycles and genome instability, which is responsible for the heightened cancer incidence in individuals with Werner Syndrome.^[3]

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