LIFESPAN - Key Persons
Andrew Aiello is a digital development & marketing expert that leads successful campaigns and development projects for several fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations. He is a Google certified professional who regularly attends Google's annual All Stars Summit in Mountain View, California, and is experienced in various online marketing disciplines including paid search, SEO, and programmatic campaigns. Andrew clearly demonstrates how these digital tools can grow any type of organization. He has led and continues to lead highly successful digital development and marketing campaigns for local and national firms. Andrew graduated with a bachelor's in communication design from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY.
Job Titles:
- Journalist
- Science Journalist
Arkadi is a seasoned journalist and op-ed author with a passion for learning and exploration. His interests span from politics to science and philosophy. Having studied economics and international relations, he is particularly interested in the social aspects of longevity and life extension. He strongly believes that life extension is an achievable and noble goal that has yet to take its rightful place on the very top of our civilization's agenda - a situation he is eager to change.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey is the biomedical gerontologist who researched the idea for and founded SENS Research Foundation. He received his BA in Computer Science and Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Cambridge in 1985 and 2000, respectively. Dr. de Grey is the former Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations.
Brian helped found the Calorie Restriction Society International, and has been its president for over twenty years. He has published a book on calorie restriction and longevity, with Lisa Walford, The Longevity Diet, as well as numerous articles on aging and life-extension. He recently became president of the Society for Age Reversal in order to help advance research into very near-term solutions to the problem of aging, and to make existing treatments of age-related maladies more widely available. He lectures frequently, focusing on recent research findings and how they can be applied today to our health maintenance and age-reversal regimens. Brian helps scientists move from concept to initial company formation, and is a co-founder and partner of the venture capital company Emergency Longevity Ventures. After early, formative years studying science, Brian turned largely towards the humanities in his post-secondary education. He received an A.B. in music from Brown University, completed the requirements for a master's degree in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, working on a dissertation on nineteenth-century German philosophy. He has translated a number of texts in philosophy, including (with Sven-Olov Wallenstein), G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, from German to Swedish, for which he was awarded a prize from the Swedish Academy.
Christie has been a full-time digital nomad for over ten years. Living on either four wheels or two, she has traveled across Europe, Northern Africa, and Latin America, and is a passionate motorcycle rider, outdoor enthusiast, and martial artist. Currently based in Munich, Christie holds a degree in philosophy from Stony Brook University and works as a writer, content creator, translator, project manager, and organizer.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lifespanio Scientific Advisory Board
- Harvard Medical School - Professor of Genetics
- Professor
David A. Sinclair, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a co-joint Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of New South Wales. He is the co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging and a Senior Scholar of the Ellison Medical Foundation. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1995. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T. with Dr. Leonard Guarente where he co discovered a cause of aging for yeast as well as the role of Sir2 in epigenetic changes driven by genome instability. In 1999 he was recruited to Harvard Medical School where his laboratory's research has focused primarily on understanding the role of sirtuins in disease and aging, with associated interests in chromatin, energy metabolism, mitochondria, learning and memory, neurodegeneration, and cancer. He has also contributed to the understanding of how sirtuins are modulated by endogenous molecules and pharmacological agents such as resveratrol. Dr. Sinclair is co-founder of several biotechnology companies and is on the scientific advisory board of several others. He is also co-founder and co-chief editor of the journal Aging. He has received numerous awards including The Australian Commonwealth Prize, a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Award, a Leukemia Society Fellowship, a Ludwig Scholarship, a Harvard-Armenise Fellowship, an American Association for Aging Research Fellowship, The Nathan Shock Award from NIH, Scholarships from The Ellison Medical Foundation, The Merck Prize, the Genzyme Outstanding Achievement in Biomedical Science Award, a "Bio-Innovator award" and the David Murdock-Dole Lectureship.
Job Titles:
- National University Singapore - Professor of Biochemistry and Physiology
Dr. Brian Kennedy is internationally recognized for his research in the basic biology of aging and as a visionary committed to translating research discoveries into new ways of delaying, detecting, and preventing human aging and associated diseases. He is a Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Physiology at National University Singapore and Director of the Centre for Healthy Ageing in the National University Health System. From 2010 to 2016 he was the President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Currently, he remains as a Professor at the Institute. Dr. Kennedy also has an adjunct appointment at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Dr. Kennedy is also actively involved Biotechnology companies, serving in consulting and Board capacities, as well as Scientific Director of Affirmativ Health. Dr. Kennedy also serves as a Co-Editor-In-Chief at Aging Cell.
Job Titles:
- President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research
Dr. Eric Verdin, President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, is also a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco, and his name appears on over two hundred research papers and fifteen patents. He studies the effects of small molecules, diet, and metabolism on histone deacetylases and sirtuins, which affect aging. He is among the top 1 percent of cited scientists and has received a Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging and a senior scholarship from the Ellison Medical Foundation. Dr. Verdin has extensive experience working with biotech companies. He founded Acylin, which has since been purchased by Abbvie, and he has served on the scientific advisory boards of Elixir, Sirtris, and the well-known Google holding Calico. Dr. Verdin has also consulted for multiple biotech companies, including Novartis, GSK, J&J, Altana, Roche, and Pfizer. His scientific memberships include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians, and he is on the advisory council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lifespanio Scientific Advisory Board
Judith Campisi has received international recognition for her contributions to understanding why age is the largest single risk factor for developing a panoply of diseases, ranging from neurodegeneration to cancer. Her highly acclaimed research integrates the genetic, environmental and evolutionary forces that result in aging and age-related diseases, and identifies pathways that can be modified to mitigate basic aging processes. See video interview.
Dr. Campisi also makes significant contributions to understanding why aging is the largest single risk factor for developing cancer. She is widely recognized for her work on senescent cells - older cells that have stopped dividing - and their influence on aging and cancer. Senescence occurs when cells experience certain types of stress, especially stress that can damage the genome. The senescence response helps prevent cancer by blocking damaged cells from multiplying. But there is a trade off - the lingering senescent cells may also cause harm to the body. The Campisi lab found evidence that senescent cells can disrupt normal tissue functions and, ironically, drive the progression of cancer over time. Senescent cells also promote inflammation, which is a common feature of all major age-related diseases. Dr. Campisi is collaborating with many other research groups at the Buck Institute to examine other suspected influences of senescent cells
The Campisi lab found evidence that senescent cells can disrupt normal tissue functions and, ironically, drive the progression of cancer over time. Senescent cells also promote inflammation, which is a common feature of all major age-related diseases. Dr. Campisi is collaborating with many other research groups at the Buck Institute to examine other suspected influences of senescent cells in other diseases of aging. Her research is shedding light on anti-cancer genes, DNA repair mechanisms that promote longevity, molecular pathways that protect cells against stress, and stem cells and their role in aging and age-related disease.
Dr. Campisi received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the State University New York at Stony Brook and completed postdoctoral training at the Harvard Medical School. As an assistant professor at the Boston University Medical School, she became interested in the control of cellular senescence and its role in tumor suppression and aging. She joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a Senior Scientist in 1991. She established a second laboratory at the Buck Institute in 2002. At both institutions, she established a broad program to understand various aspects of aging, with an emphasis on the interface between cancer and aging.
The Campisi laboratory has made several pioneering discoveries in these areas, and her research continues to challenge and alter existing paradigms. In recognition of the quality of her research and leadership in the field, she has received numerous awards, including two MERIT awards from the US National Institute on Aging, and awards from the AlliedSignal Corporation, Gerontological Society of America, American Federation for Aging Research, and, most recently, the Longevity prize from the IPSEN Foundation. She currently serves on numerous national and international editorial and advisory boards.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Tufts University - Nutrition, Exercise Physiology, and Sarcopenia ( NEPS ) Team
Dr. Michael Lustgarten is a Scientist in the Nutrition, Exercise Physiology, and Sarcopenia (NEPS) Laboratory at the HNRCA. His research currently focuses on the role of the gut microbiome and serum metabolome on muscle mass and function in older adults. Dr. Lustgarten has been a guest lecturer at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy on topics such as the gut microbiome, serum metabolome, oxidative stress, exercise, and sarcopenia. He has contributed to 22 publications in leading peer-reviewed journals that have been cited more than 2,000 times, including 14 manuscripts as the first or last author.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Institute for Aging Research
Dr. Nir Barzilai is the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research and of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging. He is the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research, professor in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics, and member of the Diabetes Research Center and of the Divisions of Endocrinology & Diabetes and Geriatrics. Dr. Barzilai's research interests are in the biology and genetics of aging. One focuses on the genetic of exceptional longevity, where we hypothesize and demonstrated that centenarians have protective genes, which allows the delay of aging or for the protection against age-related diseases. In a Program he is leading we take full advantage of phenotypes, DNA, and cells from the Ashkenazi Jewish families with exceptional longevity and the appropriate controls and his group have established at Einstein (over 2600 samples of which 670 are centenarians) and discovered underling genomic differences associated with longevity. Longevity Genes Project (LGP) is a cross-sectional, on-going collection of blood and phenotype from families with centenarian proband. LonGenity is a longitudinal study of 1400 subjects, half offspring of parents with exceptional longevity, validating and following their aging in relationship to their genome. The second direction, for which Dr. Barzilai is holding an NIH Merit award that focuses on the metabolic decline of aging, and his team hypothesize that the brain leads this decline. His lab has identified several central pathways that specifically alter body fat distribution and insulin action and secretion by intraventricular or hypothalamic administration of several peptides that are modulated by aging including: Leptin, IGF-1, IGFBP3 and resveratrol.
Emmett Short is a science communicator, stand-up comedian and creative director. He has toured the globe performing in USO shows and has had the honor of opening for legendary comedians like Mitch Hedberg and Robin Williams. Emmett was also one of the New Faces of Comedy at the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. Emmett's passion for science and technology led him to create a YouTube series called "Knee of the Curve," where he explores society-altering technological advancements in a humorous and relatable way. Emmett's excitement for life extension is fueled by his desire to one day become a Space Cowboy. Yes, seriously. He's brought his skills to the Lifespan News YouTube channel and hopes to create buzz around all the great science happening in the longevity space.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Bioengineering
- UC Berkeley Research - Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
Irina Conboy is Professor of Bioengineering, UC Berkeley, QB3(UCB/UCSF/UCSC) core faculty member and Core Member of UCB/UCSF Graduate Program. A key direction of her laboratory is to understand age-imposed and pathological changes in circulatory milieu and their impact on signaling pathways that regulate tissue maintenance and repair. In the past few years this direction has been ramified to synthetic biology and innovative digital biosensors for diagnostics of age-imposed alterations and for assessing the response to treatments longitudinally, in real time. Overall, success in this research will improve our understanding of the determinants of homeostatic health and will enable novel approaches to treat a number of pathologies that range from tissue degeneration to cancer and include novel ways to avoid and diminish fibrosis, inflammation and metabolic decline. Prof. Conboy received numerous awards for her work in Aging field, including Silicon Valley Foundation Award for clinical translation of aging research, Open Philanthropy Award, Packer endowment for Aging research, Raymond and Beverly Sackler TAU Award, Calico Award, Bridging the Gap, Rogers' Award, SENS Foundation and Life Extension Foundation, W.M. Keck Foundation Award, Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging, Ellison's Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging award, and NIH KO1 and National Research Service Awards.
James Hale is Partnerships Lead at Lifespan.io, where his focus is on building and strengthening impactful relationships with organizations and institutions both within and outside of the longevity space. James graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in Philosophy. While studying at UF, James discovered his passion for scientific research and data-driven approaches to improving health, longevity, and cognitive functioning. Prior to joining Lifespan.io, James operated a tea and teaware business, with a primary focus on antique chawans, matcha, and new harvest green teas. In his free time, James enjoys tea and other functional foods, biohacking, and listening to music from around the world.
Javier's primary focus is on very early stage science investing. (AI, robotics, synBio, medtech, diagnostics, therapeutics, etc). He co-founded ScienceVest (YC F3), a fund and platform for hard-tech and life science companies, and Impact Science Angels, an angel group focused on investing in companies that can impact 1MM+ lives. Javier has an academic background in biotechnology & economics and is a self-taught software engineer. In a past life Javier worked in India improving technical skills gaps and agricultural technology. He has served as judge for multiple startup pitch competitions and frequently writes on a number of topics(science investing, impact investing, pre-clinical drug discovery, learning to code and more).
Job Titles:
- Editor / Journalist
- Professional Editor
Josh is a professional editor and is responsible for editing our articles before they become available to the public as well as moderating our Discord server. He is also a programmer, long-time supporter of anti-aging medicine, and avid player of the strange game called "real life." Living in the center of the northern prairie, Josh enjoys long bike rides before the blizzards hit.
Job Titles:
- Computer Programmer
- President
Keith Comito is a computer programmer and mathematician whose work brings together a variety of disciplines to provoke thought and promote social change. He has created video games, bioinformatics programs, musical applications, and biotechnology projects featured in Forbes and NPR. In addition to developing high-profile mobile applications such as HBO Now, MLB At Bat, and most recently Disney+, he explores the intersection of technology and biology at the Brooklyn community lab Genspace, where he helped to create games which allow players to direct the motion of microscopic organisms. Seeing age-related disease as one of the most profound problems facing humanity, he now works to accelerate and democratize longevity research efforts through initiatives such as Lifespan.io. As president of LEAF, he is a leading advocate for the increase of healthy human lifespan, participating in numerous speaking engagements and press appearances around the world, and working to produce high-impact media projects to inform and engage the public regarding this critical topic. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics, B.S. in Computer science, and M.S. in Applied Mathematics at Hofstra University, where his work included analysis of the LMNA protein.
Job Titles:
- Science Journalist
- Writer and Editor
Maria is a writer and editor with a passion for technology, health, and lifelong learning. With over 6 years of experience in content creation for the fintech and wellness industries, and 10 years in the non-profit sector, as well as a Masters of Science in Development Management, she is passionate about combining tech and healthcare to make the world a better place.
Mattijs is a professional Communication Consultant and Graphic Designer, based in the Netherlands. He has a Masters Degree in Communications from Radboud University of Nijmegen and is a Bachelor in Digital Communications from the Unversity of Applied Sciences in Groningen. He became interested in aging research when he first saw Aubrey de Grey give one of his trademark presentations. This triggered him to think beyond the current paradigm of aging as inevitable and made him into an anti-aging advocate. Mattijs is part of the social media team - where his focus is mainly on graphic design. Besides the fight against aging Mattijs enjoys spending time with family and friends, learning about history (mostly Roman and French history) and outdoor activities such as gardening and walking.
Job Titles:
- University of California - Distinguished Professor
On receiving a British Commonwealth Scholarship in 1976, Michael Rose proceeded to the University of Sussex for his doctoral studies under the supervision of Brian Charlesworth and John Maynard Smith. The subject of his doctoral research was the quantitative genetics of aging in Drosophila melanogaster. A N.A.T.O. Science Fellowship took Rose to the University of Wisconsin - Madison, in 1979, to work with James F. Crow at the Department of Genetics. During this period, he began to work out some of the theoretical population genetics behind the evolution of life-histories, particularly the concept of "antagonistic pleiotropy", a term of his coinage A federally-funded research faculty position took Rose to Canada in 1981, where he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. There he set up a Drosophila laboratory, as well as continuing with theoretical work. He was promoted to Associate Professor and tenured in 1985. In addition, Rose published Quantitative Ecological Theory, in 1987. While at Dalhousie, Rose pursued postponed aging, beginning with the organismal physiology involved, particularly energetic metabolism. This work extended aging research in an influential new direction, combining physiology with evolution. In particular, Rose and his students showed that resistance to various stresses was a key factor in postponed aging; flies with the genetic capacity to live longer are better able to resist stress at every adult age. This work has opened up new avenues of research on aging, with collaborations between physiologists and evolutionists of increasing importance. In 1987, Rose returned to the United States to become an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine. In 1990, Rose was promoted to Professor. In 1991, his Evolutionary Biology of Aging appeared, a book that ranged from mathematical genetics to cell biology. This work offered a view of aging that was a complete departure from the views that had dominated the aging field since 1960. The journal Evolution described the field of gerontology as having become "after Rose". In 1997, Rose received the Busse Prize of the World Congress of Gerontology. In 1998, his book Darwin's Spectre was published, a popular introduction to the history and significance of evolutionary biology. In 2004, a compendium of his laboratories' research findings was published as Methuselah Flies. His latest books are Experimental Evolution (with T. Garland) and Does Aging Stop? (with L.D. Mueller and C.L. Rauser).
Job Titles:
- CEO and Co - Founder of EpiBone
Nina Tandon is CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, the world's first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction. She is the co-author of Super Cells: Building with Biology, a book that explores the new frontier of biotech. She is a TED Senior Fellow, a Staff Associate Postdoctoral Researcher in the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Cooper Union. She has a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union, a Master's in Bioelectrical Engineering from MIT, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and an MBA from Columbia University. Her PhD research focused on studying electrical signaling in the context of tissue engineering, and has worked with cardiac, skin, bone, and neural tissue. Tandon spent her early career in telecom at Avaya Labs and transitioned into biomedical engineering via her Fulbright Scholarship in Italy, where she worked on an electronic nose used to "smell" lung cancer. After completing her PhD, she consulted at McKinsey and Company, but since 2010 she has continued her work in tissue engineering. Nina has published 10 journal articles (cited > 300 times, H = 9) and six book chapters, and she has three patents. She's been published in Nature Protocols and Lab on a Chip, has spoken three times at TED, and was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company.
Job Titles:
- Creative Director
- Designer
Pat Graziosi is a creative director & designer living in Northern Virginia. He's the Co-Creator and voice of Life Noggin, an animated educational series on YouTube. He's produced over 400 videos on everything from the inner workings of the human body to the vast mysteries of outerspace.
Paul Spiegel is a thought leader, an international speaker and a longtime activist in the fields of longevity and transhumanism. He is a board member of the Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation the American Longevity Alliance and Humanity Plus, and is a former board member of the International Longevity Alliance. He is a legal advisor to the U.S. Transhumanist Party the Lifeboat Foundation and the Brain Preservation Foundation, he is a member of Health Extension and carboncopies.org and he provides legal counsel for many longevity-related and transhumanist enterprises. Paul is an attorney specializing in longevity biomedicine and has counseled and consulted for the longevity community since 2006. His San Francisco firm, Eclectic Law, provides general counsel services to startups and established companies in biotechnology, longevity medicine and other fields. He is founder of Libertas Biomedical, LLC, which seeks friendly offshore venues for companies to promote longevity research and treatment with greater freedom than is allowed in the United States or the European Union. As of October, 2019, he will serve the Republic of San Marino as Honorary Consul for California and three other Southwestern states. Paul graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979, from Berkeley Law School in 1983, attended Harvard Law School, the University of Paris, Sorbonne, International Christian University in Tokyo and speaks 5 languages, including English, French, Spanish and Italian. Trained in international business law, he worked on Wall Street, on Montgomery Street and in Tokyo before entering private practice in San Francisco. Long an advocate of progressive ideas and legal causes, he has focused on longevity, transhumanism, regenerative medicine and the biology of aging.
Job Titles:
- Wapiti Pharmaceutical Consulting - President
Job Titles:
- Member of the Lifespanio Scientific Advisory Board
- Harvard Medical School - Professor of Genetics
- Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School
George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, which provides the world's only open-access information on human Genomic, Environmental & Trait data (GET). His 1984 Harvard PhD included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing & barcoding. These led to the first genome sequence (pathogen, Helicobacter pylori) in 1994. His innovations have contributed to nearly all "next generation" genome sequencing methods and companies (CGI, Life, Illumina, nanopore). This plus chip-based DNA synthesis and stem cell engineering resulted in founding additional application-based companies spanning fields of medical diagnostics ( Knome, Alacris, AbVitro, Pathogenica ) & synthetic biology / therapeutics ( Joule, Gen9, Editas, Egenesis, enEvolv, WarpDrive ). He has also pioneered new privacy, biosafety, environmental & biosecurity policies. He is director of NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Science. His honors include election to NAS & NAE & Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science. He has coauthored 330 papers, 60 patents & one book (Regenesis).
Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, a veteran geroscientist, and a serial entrepreneur, George Church hardly needs an introduction. While we are always happy to discuss the present and future of geroscience with him, this interview focuses on the two gene therapy papers that he recently co-authored, which drew a lot of attention due...
Job Titles:
- University of Arkansas - Professor and Udupa Chair in Geriatrics
Job Titles:
- Aging Research and Investment
Today, we have an interview with Longevity Investor Network member Sebastian Aguiar, who has kindly shared some of his thoughts and motivations with us. Sebastian Aguiar is a Venture Fellow at Apollo Ventures, an aging-focused venture capital fund and company builder that invests across Europe and the United States. He can be found on Linkedin and Twitter....
Job Titles:
- Center for Research & Education on Aging - Director of Bioinformatics
Job Titles:
- UC Berkeley Research - Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
Job Titles:
- USC Longevity Institute - Professor in Gerontology