Planetary Futures Wettbewerb Vol. III (2024)
Protective Mechanisms during Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Enhance Human Resilience to Prolonged Heat Stress
organized by: Martin N. Hebart, Bianca van Kemenade, Klaus Deckmann, Thorsten R. Döppner, & Karsten Krüger
Despite some human efforts of keeping global warming well below 1.5° Celsius, even with the current levels of warming it is now increasingly likely that our countries and societies will have to learn how to deal with more extreme weather, including extreme heat waves. While much work has looked into the effect of global warming and heat waves on life on earth, the impact on societies, and the health effects on individuals, much less is known about protective factors humans can use to better adapt to a changing climate. As part of the JLU focused research area “Translational Neuroscience Network Giessen”, we address this challenge using a multidisciplinary approach, spanning the entire breadth of in vitro research through animal models all the way to humans to shed light on signaling pathways associated with the resistance of the nervous system exposed to heat stress. Specifically, our group targets α-synuclein (α-Syn), which provides a promising marker for a candidate signaling pathway for maladaptive consequences of heat stress, including ischemic stroke.
As protective factors, we will study the role of diet and physical activity on heat stress in the context of α-Syn. The results are expected to elucidate the neuroprotective role of α-Syn after stroke and to provide important insights into potential therapeutic strategies for the management of heat stress in at-risk groups.
