Della David
DEUG (Montpellier), MSc (Strasbourg), PhD (Zürich)
College roles
Bye-Fellow
Biography
Dr Della David is a scientist researching the biological mechanisms of ageing, with a focus on protein aggregation.
Dr Della David studied in France, first in Montpellier and then in Strasbourg, obtaining a diploma in biotechnology from the European School of Biotechnology. Afterwards, Della moved to Switzerland to pursue her PhD in Neuroscience, working with Dr. Jürgen Götz. Following a brief postdoctoral period in Australia, Della joined the lab of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon at the University of California, San Francisco in 2006, to begin her postdoctoral studies on ageing in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. For this work, she was awarded fellowships from the American Federation for Aging Research, Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research, Larry L. Hillblom Foundation and Swiss National Science Foundation. In 2011, Della became a junior group leader at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Tübingen and in 2019, switched to the Interfaculty Institute of Biochemistry. In 2022, Della was appointed a senior group leader at the Babraham Institute in the Signalling Program.
Research Interests
Della David works with her group to understand the basic molecular mechanisms driving the ageing process and to identify strategies to promote healthy ageing. Protein quality control pathways become deregulated with age and they can no longer maintain a pristine functional proteome. Using the model organism C. elegans, Della discovered that hundreds of proteins accumulate in aberrant solid aggregates with age. Results from her group demonstrate that age-dependent protein aggregates accelerate functional decline, thus contributing to unhealthy ageing. Recently, her group made major discoveries uncovering a network of extracellular factors that counter protein aggregation outside cells and support the organism’s response to pathogens, as detailed here: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2461-z.