McIver Series 2025: Professor Judith A. Steen - Protecting Your Brain as You Age: What We’ve Learned from Studying How the Brain Changes Over Time

We all want to keep our minds sharp as we age—but what works? In this talk, I will share insights from our laboratory research at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, where our team studies how brain proteins change with age and neurodegenerative disease. More than 95% of Alzheimer’s disease cases are sporadic, meaning they are not caused by a single gene mutation, but instead develop over many years in response to the stresses we place on our bodies throughout life.

Our research shows that brain health depends on a delicate balance among multiple interconnected systems, particularly the close interplay among the immune system, inflammation, blood vessels, and the brain. Instead of being a problem that starts solely in the brain, many of the earliest causes of brain aging originate elsewhere in the body. Chronic inflammation, infections, and metabolic health play significant roles. Cardiovascular function, sleep, physical activity, stress, and nutrition all play powerful roles in shaping how the brain ages over time.

Drawing on studies of hundreds of patients, I will explain why maintaining low systemic inflammation is critical for maintaining brain health, and how everyday lifestyle choices influence the proteins that enable brain cells to function, communicate, and remain resilient. I will also discuss why neurodegenerative diseases develop over decades, why symptoms typically emerge late, and why this long timeline creates significant opportunities for prevention and protection.

About the Speaker

Dr. Judith Steen is a Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, a member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and the Director of the Neuroproteomics Laboratory in the F. M. Kirby Neuroscience Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. Her laboratory works to understand neuro-regeneration and neurodegenerative diseases using systems biology approaches. The laboratory develops novel qualitative and quantitative methodologies at the interface of proteomics and transcriptomics with special emphasis on computational proteomics approaches. These novel quantitative methods and bioinformatics tools developed by the Steen Laboratory are being applied to understand the biology of regeneration and neurodegeneration in both mouse models, stem cells, and human tissues, to find molecular targets for therapeutics, and to identify biomarkers of the neurodegenerative process. Further functional studies using biochemical, molecular, and cell biology approaches are used to verify and understand the role of the targets and biomarkers in the context of injury and disease. The goal of this research is to use molecular information provided by our quantitative proteomics measurements in order to ameliorate neurodegeneration and promote regeneration.

All are welcome.

This program is part of the 2025 McIver series. The Series is named in honor of Vivian McIver, longtime director of the library. All presentations are free and accessible to the public.

This is sponsored by the Trustees of the Needham Free Public Library.