Distinguished Professor, Department Chair

• University of Alabama at Birmingham
• Email: austad <at> uab <dot> edu

The long-term goal of my research is to develop treatments to slow the aging process, thus keeping people fit and healthy longer. My laboratory works with different animal species, especially those which are more successful at aging than humans. We work on exotic species, like clams that live more than 500 years, and hydra that don’t age at all, in order to discover such treatments. We also develop measures of laboratory animal health, so that we can assess whether a treatment that makes a mouse live longer also improves the quality of its life. Finally, it has been discovered in recent years that the sexes often respond very differently to treatments than extend life and health. Something that dramatically slows aging in one sex may have no effect on the other sex. We have recently begun exploring why this is so.

Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Biology

• University of Rochester
• Email: Vgorbuno <at> UR <dot> Rochester <dot> edu

Dr. Gorbunova pioneered comparative biology approach to study aging and identified rules that control the evolution of tumor suppressor mechanisms depending on the species lifespan and body mass. Dr. Gorbunova also investigates the role of Sirtuin proteins in maintaining genome stability. More recently the focus of her research has been on the longest-lived rodent species the naked mole rats and the blind mole rat.

Professor of Biotechnology

• University of Tartu
• Andres <dot> metspalu <at> ut <dot> ee

Dr. Metspalu's major fields of research are genomics and genetic engineering, human genome research methods for large variation in gene banks; genetics and complex diseases, the relationship of genes, environmental factors, lifestyle, and state of health between the molecular and genetic analysis in developing the technology of DNA chip technology.

Faculty, Perelman School of Medicine

• Univeristy of Tartu
• Email: jhmoore <at> upenn <dot> edu

Artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, biomedical informatics, complex adaptive systems, data science, epistasis, genetic architecture, genetic epidemiology, genomics, human genetics, machine learning, network science, precision medicine, simulation, systems biology, translational bioinformatics, visualization, visual analytics

Founding director of the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s & Neurodegenerative Diseases

• UT Health San Antonio
• Email: Suseshad <at> bu <dot> edu

My research focuses on 4 interrelated areas: (a) exploring the correlates of subclinical brain aging including establishing norms for brain MRI and cognitive test performance and relating these measures to novel risk factors (such as visceral fat mass), multiple circulating biomarkers and clinical and subclinical indices of vascular and metabolic disease; (b) the epidemiology of stroke and vascular cognitive impairment including the lifetime risk of stroke, cognitive decline and dementia following stroke, the role of parental stroke and midlife risk factors in determining late-life stroke risk and temporal trends in stroke risk over the past 50 years; (c) the epidemiology of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) including describing the lifetime risk of AD and relating traditional and novel biomarkers (homocysteine, lipids, diabetes, estrogen, bone mineral density, thyroid function, inflammation) to the risk of dementia and AD.