Minhazur Sarker, an undergraduate in the College of Science, works with cell cultures in Tory Hagen's lab in the Linus Pauling Institute (Photo: Karl Maazdam)

“My father told me, ‘To get the most out of research, get there before everyone else and leave after everyone else,’” Sarker says.

And he’s following that advice, sometimes arriving even earlier than 7 a.m. and working into the evening. The first thing Sarker does when he gets to the lab is check on his cells. In a room off the main lab, he takes a flask of vibrant orange liquid out of a small refrigerator. The liquid, which resembles flat orange soda, contains the cells that Sarker’s project hinges on. By experimenting with human and rodent cells, he’s hoping to help discover a means to slow aging in humans.

A senior studying microbiology, Sarker arranged his project through the Oregon State University Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) undergraduate research program. One of the university’s most prestigious research opportunities, the institute facilitates paid research positions for undergraduate students in projects that are usually completed over the summer. While HHMI students work in all areas of the sciences, Sarker’s project draws on Oregon State’s strength in the health sciences and Hagen’s innovative research on healthy aging. When Sarker joined Hagen’s lab at the end of last school year, Hagen asked him to explore a possible avenue to promote healthier aging that began with an unlikely source — the naked mole rat.

The only cold-blooded mammal, the naked mole rat has a low metabolic rate and spends its life underground, all characteristics that contrast sharply with human life. But the naked mole rat also has something that humans have pursued for centuries: the key to longevity. These rodents, Sarker says, can live up to 30 years — 10 times the lifespan of other rats. And Hagen has an idea of what the naked mole rats’ secret might be.

Fewer calories, longer life

“When you think aging, you think of the damages that occur in the body, but people forget the other half, the body’s defense mechanisms and the way it fixes things up,” Sarker says. “Aging is two things: destructive processes and the responses.”

The quality of those response processes deteriorates over time, allowing degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s to develop because the body’s defenses can’t keep up with the damage being done. But a process known as the heat shock protein response, which involves the refolding of proteins that are disordered by physical stress on the body, has been shown to remain active longer as a result of caloric restriction. A restricted diet like that of the naked mole rat, Hagen says, allows the body’s proteins to remain in balance longer and stimulates the heat shock protein response more often. By this means, Hagen believes, the naked mole rat may be improving its longevity.

“The only real known paradigm of increasing mean lifetime of species is dietary and caloric restriction,” Hagen says. “When you restrict calories but provide vitamins and micronutrients to maintain basic function, the species lives for an inordinately long time.”

Hagen would like to see humans take advantage of a more enduring heat shock protein response, but he’s not expecting people to live on a fraction of the calories in an average diet.

“Part of our work in healthy aging is to try to have that benefit without the burden,” Hagen says. “Part of that is to find mimics that would add nothing to the diet and certainly could increase the health span.”

Cell by cell

Under the microscope, the orange liquid becomes a field of bulbous white shapes that resemble burst popcorn kernels. The cells grow in a liquid medium until there are too many for the flask, when Sarker splits them into new containers to be used in testing or to continue growing. By this means, he’s able to keep the cells growing indefinitely.

Performing cell culture requires precision and absolute sterilization, creating a sense of pressure that Sarker believes sometimes wards off students who are interested in research.

“You learn by doing,” he says. “That’s what research is. I tell new students, you have four years to mess up in college; learn from your mistakes. Do it — screw up, mess it up — no one is going to hold it against you.”

The mimic that Hagen asked Sarker to experiment with is geranylgeranylacetone, a compound that has been safely used to treat ulcers and arthritis overseas. Sarker is testing GGA’s potential to induce a particular heat shock protein response, HSP70, by applying it to cells of the four species and then exposing the cells to stressful conditions to activate the response. By analyzing how the cells react to the stress, he hopes to determine whether the compound could be used to enhance the heat shock protein response.

Though Sarker’s project began during the summer and the HHMI program doesn’t require him to work beyond that period, he’s committed to taking the project as far as he can. During his final year at Oregon State, Sarker will continue working in Hagen’s lab.

“I have some preliminary results, but there’s a lot more I can do with it, so I really want to take ownership of it and move forward,” Sarker says. “It’s more about the process and not just about the completion and getting a result. Having a positive result is a good thing, but if you don’t get there, did you learn from it?”

Research as an undergraduate

While Sarker continues to explore whether GGA could slow the effects of aging in humans, he maintains a full schedule. In addition to working at the lab, preparing to attend medical school and running his own online business netting lacrosse sticks, he works as a tour guide for the College of Science. After spending a morning piping cell cultures into new plates and running samples, Sarker can be found walking backwards across campus with a group of prospective students and their parents in tow.

As comfortable with the campus visitors as he is in the lab, Sarker uses his own experiences to encourage younger students to take advantage of research opportunities in college.

“When you do research on campus, you’re learning, you’re helping your future and you’re getting paid,” he tells students on his tours. “That’s a triple positive, and that doesn’t happen very often, so when you find one, take it and run for it.”

Through undergraduate research programs like the HHMI, students can gain skills and experience that aren’t available elsewhere — and learn from renowned researchers such as Hagen. According to Hagen, involving students in research is a natural priority, both in his lab and at Oregon State University.

“We don’t have big barriers at Oregon State; faculty and students interact very easily,” Hagen says. “I’ve been here for 14 years and had undergraduate students in our lab pretty much all those years. It’s part of our reason for being here, showing students what a lab experience is like.”

Sarker ends his tours in front of the Linus Pauling Science Center, where he’s able to point out the floor he works on and describe how hands-on work at Oregon State has benefited his education, before heading back to the lab.

“That’s really the reason to come here, for the experiential learning,” Sarker says. “Research teaches you maturity, to be respectful, give presentations, interact with people, as well as organization and time management. These are skills you’re not going to get in the classroom.”

Such networks would offer continuous, real-time health diagnosis, experts say, to reduce the onset of degenerative diseases, save lives and cut health care costs. The ideal monitoring device would be small, worn on the body, low cost, and perhaps draw its energy from something as minor as body heat. But it would be able to transmit vast amounts of health information in real time and help to prevent or treat disease.

Illustration by Teresa Hall

Sounds great in theory, but it’s not easy. If it were, the X Prize Foundation wouldn’t be trying to develop a Tricorder X Prize — inspired by the remarkable instrument of Star Trek fame — that would give $10 million to whomever can create a mobile wireless sensor and give billions of people around the world better access to low-cost, reliable medical monitoring and diagnostics.

“This type of sensing would scale down to the size of a bandage that you could wear around you,” says Chiang, an expert in wireless medical electronics and assistant professor in the OSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

“The sensor might provide and transmit data on heart health, bone density, blood pressure or insulin status. Ideally, you could not only monitor health issues but also help prevent problems before they happen. Maybe detect arrhythmias, for instance, and anticipate heart attacks. Or, monitor the indoor location of an elderly person or the early onset of cognitive decline. Finally, it needs to be non-invasive and able to provide huge amounts of data while consuming little energy.”

Several startup companies such as Corventis and iRhythm have already entered the cardiac monitoring market.

In the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, Chiang and his team reported that one of the key obstacles is the energy required to run the device. A type of technology called “ultrawideband” might have that capability if the receiver getting the data were within a “line of sight” and signals were not interrupted by passing through a human body. But even non-line of sight transmission might be possible using ultrawideband if lower transmission rates were required, they found. Collaborating on the research was Huaping Liu, an associate professor in EECS, and clinical researchers at the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology at the Oregon Health & Science University.

Patrick Chiang (Photo courtesy of the College of Engineering)

“The challenges are quite complex, but the potential benefit is huge and of increasing importance with an aging population,” Chiang says. “This is definitely possible. I could see some of the first systems being commercialized within the next three years.”

Chiang’s collaborators on projects to develop non-invasive wireless monitoring devices include colleagues at OSU’s Center for Healthy Aging Research, the Linus Pauling Institute and OHSU in Portland. Chiang also collaborates with researchers at Tsinghua and Fudan universities in China.

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Rachel Robertson contributed to this story.

Online: learn more about Patrick Chiang’s research.

Self-paced routines instill confidence. Kathy Gunter admits that if she had approached exercises for older women with a competitive attitude, many would have objected. "They had no problems telling me what they thought," she says. (Photo: Karl Maasdam)

“Keep your tummies in. Arms up. Shoulders down. Up and over!” The sound of 25 pairs of feet thumping a wooden floor echoes through the Benton Center gym. On cue from fitness instructor Shelly Morris, the all-female class steps on and off platforms that range from four to 10 inches high, some participants moving quickly, lifting legs, planting feet, stepping to the side and going back in reverse.

Morris cheers on her students: “You’re looking great this morning! Best all week.”

“Of course. Women don’t sweat. We glisten!” one exerciser laughs.

It could be any exercise class anywhere except for one thing: Many of these women are the last people you’d expect to see in a gym. One celebrated her 88th birthday the previous week. If you saw a member of the class crossing the street, you’d be tempted to offer her a hand. “Nothing would annoy her more,” says Beth Lambright, one of Morris’ co-instructors, to the nodding agreement of several women in the class. “These women are more likely to help you.”

Fear of Falling

The class known as Better Bones and Balance has its roots in a 1994 Oregon State University research project and addresses one of the most significant health risks for older Americans. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, one in three people over 65 falls in a given year. The results are too familiar: broken hips, concussions and other bone-rattling traumas that, in 2006, sent about 1.8 million seniors to emergency rooms. Accidental falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among the elderly.

Reducing those risks is the purpose of Better Bones and Balance. Through a prescribed routine of self-paced stretching and weight-bearing exercises that build muscle, bone mass and confidence, the class equips seniors to safely handle everyday chores — getting dressed, doing the laundry, vacuuming floors, carrying groceries.

“Most seniors in the United States cannot stand on one foot for 30 seconds,” says Lambright. “Mine can stand like that for two minutes. We do things forever on one leg so that if they start to fall, they have time to figure out where they want to go. Or we train their legs to go out to the side where they can catch them and break the energy of the fall.”

Next year, she plans to start a class for 90-year-olds.

Better Bones and Balance grew from research by Christine Snow, former director of the OSU Bone Research Laboratory, and by Ph.D. student Janet Shaw, now a professor at the University of Utah. “Christine saw that athletes who participated in high-impact sports such as gymnastics, where the landing forces are very large, had extraordinarily high bone mass in comparison to other athletic populations,” says Kathy Gunter, assistant professor in OSU Extension’s Family and Community Development Program and the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences. Gunter did her Ph.D. work with Snow. “Obviously we can’t have older adults dismounting off the (balance) beam and the impacts associated with that. The question came down to: How can we safely increase the load on the skeleton in a group-exercise setting and effectively increase or preserve bone mass?”

“As individuals age, they become increasingly like themselves.”
Bernice Neugarten,
1964 (founder of the field of personality and aging)

In 2006, the first wave of baby boomers turned 60. Even for the bold cultural warriors of the 1960s — the rockers, idealists, protesters and iconoclasts who transformed the nation — the transition to retirement is likely to be tough, according to OSU researcher Karen Hooker. Whether they thrive or struggle as they redefine their roles and restructure their time, she says, will depend largely on their personality.

The role of personality in life’s trajectory has intrigued Hooker ever since her undergraduate days at Denison University in Ohio. Why, she wondered, do some people move through adulthood with relative ease, rolling with the punches, keeping a sense of purpose and hope, while others succumb to depression, addiction or hopelessness? Then, as a graduate student in developmental psychology at the College of William and Mary, the nascent field of aging captured her.

“The whole notion that development doesn’t stop when you hit 21 was really just emerging,” says the professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, reminiscing in her Milam Hall office. “It wasn’t on the general public’s radar screen, in spite of the demographics of a growing aging population. I thought, ‘Wow! This is really untapped.’”

That was the late 1970s, a time when old people were getting a bum rap in popular culture. “Everywhere you looked, there was a lot of ageism,” she recalls. “If you watched TV, you didn’t see very many models of old people, and the ones you did see were extremely negative.”

The stereotypes of crotchety, decrepit, frumpy or demented elders didn’t jibe with Hooker’s own experience. Her grandmother and great-grandfather both maintained optimism, good humor, curiosity, energy and intellect throughout their lives. She remembers watching her great-grandfather working on his Pennsylvania farm and her grandmother playing bridge with friends, well into their ‘90s. “They were vibrant and interesting and resilient,” she says. “They were living history.”

So the scholar-athlete from the Midwest (who once dreamed of becoming a gym teacher) went on to earn her Ph.D. at Penn State, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University’s Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. Over the next quarter-century — with funding from agencies such as the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute on Mental Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — she has delved deeply into the mysteries of personality and aging. The issues she explores with surveys, interviews, statistical analyses, and theoretical models are some of the most wrenching and life-altering in human experience — bereavement, institutionalization for dementia, mental health of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease caregivers, memory loss, becoming a parent, retiring from the workforce. “The thread underlying all my work is transitions — those times during the course of life when personality may act as a compass for navigating new circumstances,” she says.

Ironically, her decades absorbed in aging have barely registered on Hooker’s face. The lithe 50-year-old can be seen most evenings swimming laps in the campus pool or running the hills of Corvallis — the very kinds of lifestyle choices whose benefits are well-documented in the literature. Researchers know with certainty that working out, eating and drinking in moderation, and eschewing tobacco and other risky behaviors support healthy aging. They are clear about the effects of education, affluence, and ethnicity. They know, too, that engagement with life and strong social support networks are vital. Less understood, however, is how our personalities interact with these myriad factors to influence our mental and physical health over the years.

To broaden and deepen the concept of personality, Hooker has developed a theoretical model called “the six foci of personality” with Dan McAdams of Northwestern University. Published in the prestigious Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences in 2003, the model has been adopted by universities across the U.S. as a powerful tool to guide future studies in personality and aging. That’s because it weaves the various strands of personality into a whole fabric, including the life stories we construct and the narratives we tell. This new unity of personality as a multidimensional concept opens the way to more comprehensive explorations of the aging self.

“The framework lets researchers better address the full richness of personality,” Hooker says. “It helps to solidify the science of personality in adulthood through a common language that had previously been elusive.”

Hooker’s current investigations into our “possible selves” are also yielding tantalizing clues. Self-concepts about the ideal we hope to be or the person we fear to become play critical roles as internal motivators, she explains, acting as psychological carrots and sticks in decision-making. By the time we reach old age, she has found, most of us have at least one health-related possible self. If you carry around a mental image of yourself as, for example, a 75-year-old equestrian cantering across the landscape, or an 80-year-old bicyclist pedaling Cycle Oregon, you’re better able to cope with — and fend off — that scary possible self, the bedridden nursing-home resident, Hooker says.

“Personality is the driving force behind successful aging,” she asserts. “What type of person you are, how reliably you can be counted on, your approach to people — all are crucial for understanding social support, coping strategies, stress and other health-related behaviors.”

When she uses the term “personality,” Hooker isn’t talking only about the traits we characterize with adjectives such as bubbly, aloof, shy or gregarious. Those outward qualities are just one side of personality. The other side is about actions — setting and achieving goals, for instance. Hooker’s ongoing research and scholarship in developmental psychology is revealing how those two aspects of personality — traits (“structures”) and states (“processes”) — affect social and emotional adjustment in later life. Although traits are more-or-less fixed, states are dynamic. In other words, they can change. That means that useful skills for coping with retirement — such as how to structure leisure time to make it both meaningful and manageable — are teachable and learnable.

“People tend to think of personality as immutable, carved in stone,” she says. “But we are finding that in fact, it’s a domain where there’s potential for growth, even in the very last days of life. You can always grow in some aspect of yourself.”