Ana Maria Cuervo

Biosketch

Dr. Ana Maria Cuervo obtained her M.D. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular biology from the University of Valencia (Spain) and received postdoctoral training at Tufts University in Boston. In 2002, she started her laboratory at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she is now Distinguished professor of Developmental and Molecular Biology, co-director of the Institute for Aging Research and the Robert and Renee Belfer Chair for Neurodegenerative disorders.

She is a recognized leader in the field of protein degradation and the biology of aging for her work on the impact of autophagy on aging and age-related disorders, with emphasis in neurodegeneration and metabolism.

Dr. Cuervo has been the recipient of prestigious awards, including P. Benson Award in Cell Biology, Keith Porter Award, Nathan Shock Award, Vincent Cristofalo Award, Bennett J. Cohen Award, Marshall Horwitz Prize, Saul Korey Prize, Negrin Prize, Change Maker Spirit Award, Hipatia Prize, Howard Taylor Ricketts Prize and the LVI Prize Jimenez Diaz . Dr. Cuervo has delivered prominent lectures such as the Robert R. Konh, the NIH Director’s, the Roy Walford, the Feodor Lynen, the Margaret Pittman, the SEBBM L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science or the Harvey Lecture.

Dr. Cuervo is elected member of the Valencian Royal Academy of Medicine, the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, the Spanish Royal Academy of Pharmacy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

Research Interests

The main focus of our laboratory is to understand how cytosolic proteins are transported into lysosomes for their degradation (autophagy) and how impaired autophagy contributes to aging and age-related diseases. A common feature of senescent cells is the accumulation of abnormal or damaged proteins in their cytosol that, undoubtedly, impairs cellular function. Protein accumulation results, at least in part, from impaired protein degradation with age. Among the different systems that participate in the intracellular degradation of proteins, lysosomes are the most affected by age. We have previously identified in many tissues of aged animals a decrease with age in the activity of a selective pathway for the degradation of cytosolic proteins in lysosomes known as chaperone-mediated autophagy. The main goal of our research is to identify the defect(s) that lead to the decreased activity of selective forms of autophagy with age and in age related pathologies, and to analyze if the correction of those defects and recovery of normal proteolytic activity in old cells leads to an improvement in cellular function.