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| Edlira Luca in her lab in Zurich |
The 40-year-old postdoctoral Albanian works at the Clinic for Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Clinical Nutrition at the University Hospital of Zurich.
"Of the children born in Switzerland last year, 1 in 4 girls and 1 in seven boys can celebrate their 100th birthday," says Luca. But with age, you lose skeletal muscle, and fat cells form between the muscles. "Around the age of 40, we lose eight percent of our skeletal muscle every ten years," she said in an interview with local media. This causes movement problems and leads to accidents leading to hospital stays.
Maintaining mobility independence in old age
"With age, we lose our freedom to move and be independent. If the year of the corona, 2020, has taught us something, the most important thing is the quality of life", emphasizes Luca. Furthermore, muscle loss increases the risk of type II diabetes in those over 65 years of age.
"I'm trying to find out why fat cells penetrate the muscles or if there is a link between the appearance of fat cells and muscle loss as we age," she says. Luca hopes to make a contribution to how muscle strength can be maintained and thus the mobility independence in old age.
She received the Vontobel Prize along with two other scientists for their research work. In her laboratory in Schlieren, Luca used the latest molecular biological methods to investigate the role of a gene family in muscle regeneration. She was able to show that a sophisticated network of five different micro-RNAs regulates communication between the muscle cell and the outside world and thus affects the formation of new muscle tissue after an injury. Making thus an important contribution to understanding muscle loss.
In older people, muscle cells regenerate more poorly, which can result in less muscle strength and functional limitations. Luca and her team showed that gene expression significantly improved muscle regeneration in older rats. The results can also be confirmed in human muscle cells. "It is a great honor to receive this award," she says.
"We have been working on this idea for so long and we have had to overcome so many obstacles."
"I love my job"
Luca was born in Albania and grew up in New York. As a child she was interested in biology, how cells function and how organs communicate with each other.
"Maybe it was because my mother is a doctor and always spoke passionately about her work." Luca has two young sons and lives with her husband who is also a doctor in Zurich.
But how does he manage to keep the kids and work under one roof?
"It's hard but I love my job," she says thoughtfully. Her research colleagues and superiors support and encourage her more.
"I have never felt discriminated against because I am a woman." In any case, she has never felt excluded. Since the Swiss National Fund has supported women who want to make money, it is even better financially so the costs of care will be taken into account. Otherwise raising two young children can be a problem.
Society's thinking is more problematic. There are still many people who think that raising a child is a woman's duty. "It is important to teach young people that dreams and passion for work belong to men and women and that partnership means sharing the home and caring for children," says Luca. She is lucky that her husband is supporting her. Even if she spends more time in the lab than planned.
"Research is more than 100 percent work," says Luca.
She and her husband wanted to work only temporarily in Switzerland. But they stayed. "We want to live here, also because of these mountains nearby."
Vontobel Price