Affiliation: The University of Oslo, Norway

Dr. Sofie Lautrup is investigating the molecular mechanisms of one of the most fundamental and fascinating topics in current biology: human aging. Her PhD training was performed at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Aarhus University, Denmark, where she focused on DNA repair mechanisms in neurons and how the activity of DNA repair relates to the cognitive decline observed during aging. During her PhD training, she spent eight months at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) USA with Dr. Vilhelm Bohr. At NIA, she continued her work on DNA repair, and examined the links between DNA repair, Alzheimer’s disease and NAD⁺ metabolism.

In October 2018, she started her post-doctoral fellowship in the laboratory lead by Associate Professor Evandro Fei Fang at the University of Oslo, Norway. The Fang laboratory is focused on the molecular mechanisms of how cells clear their damaged and aged mitochondria, a process called “mitophagy”, as well as the roles of mitophagy in Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Lautrup is working on the molecular mechanisms of how NAD⁺ depletion contributes to defective mitophagy and stem cell exhaustion in the premature aging disease Werner syndrome. She works on several experimental systems including human iPSCs, C. elegans and Drosophila melanogaster.

Dr. Lautrup has been productive with publications in PNAS, Nature Neuroscience Nature Communications, Cell Metabolism, etc. She was an awardee of the 2019 Keystone Symposia on Aging Scholarship.