Keynote Speaker

Aphrodite Vasilaki

Dr Aphrodite Vasilaki graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Molecular Biology from Liverpool John Moores University in 1999 and completed her PhD in the Department of Medicine and School of Biological Sciences at the University of Liverpool in 2003. The aim of her PhD work was to characterise the extent and time course of production of antioxidant defence enzymes and heat shock proteins (HSPs) in adult and aged skeletal muscle following non-damaging isometric contractions and to examine the mechanisms responsible for the attenuation of the stress response in skeletal muscle during ageing.

Aphrodite then undertook a five year postdoctoral position at the School of Clinical Sciences in the University of Liverpool investigating the generation of reactive oxygen species in extracellular space of muscles from adult and old mice with deficient or enhanced antioxidant systems.This project was funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and involved a collaboration between the University of Liverpool, University of Michigan, University of Texas and Emory University in the USA. In 2006, Aphrodite was elected to the Executive committee of the British Society for Research on Ageing and served as the Treasurer of the Society. In 2009, Aphrodite was awarded a Personal Research Fellowship funded by the UK charity, Research into Ageing/ Age UK. The overall aim of this work is to determine whether the defective skeletal muscle regeneration that occurs during ageing is mediated through abnormal reactive oxygen species activities in motor neurons and/or muscle cells which result in defective re-growth and interactions of motor neurons with the regenerating muscle fibres.

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