2022 Grant Recipients

• Albert Almada, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California: Mis-regulation of Stem Cell Activation Mechanisms Driving Muscle Dysfunction in the Elderly
• Ying Ann Chiao, PhD, Assistant Member, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation: The regulation of mitochondrial NAD+ metabolism in the aging heart
  
• Anthony Joseph Covarrubias, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCLA: The role of senescent macrophages as a driver of inflammaging and altered NAD+ metabolism in aging
  
• Carlos Manlio Díaz-García, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center: Casting light on energy metabolism throughout the anatomy of aging neurons
  
• Ilia Droujinine, PhD, Scripps Research Fellow and Principal Investigator, Scripps Research: Characterization of adipose tissue-to-muscle communication pathways in aging
  
• Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California: Sensing and signaling ER stress from neurons to periphery
  
• Kevin Murach, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas: Myc as the Driver of Cellular Epigenetic Rejuvenation in Skeletal Muscle
• Juan Pablo Palavicini, PhD, Assistant Professor, UT Health San Antonio: Functional lipidomics reveals a novel molecular mechanism underlying improved metabolic function and lifespan extension in remarkably long-lived mice
• Daniel Roh, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Medicine: Delineation of beneficial and detrimental roles of senescent cells in impaired wound healing of aging
• Noga Ron-Harel, PhD, Assistant Professor, Technion: Restoring immunity by targeting the aged microenvironment
• Judith Simcox, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Madison: Discovery of ceramide signaling as a regulator of energy expenditure with aging

• Edward Chouchani, PhD, Associate Professor, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Defining the functional landscape of protein redox regulation during aging
• Omer Yilmaz, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: The role of dysregulated methionine metabolism in the aged intestinal stem cell stromal niche

• Matthew Bubak, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation: Restoring the ability of aged muscle to adapt to aerobic exercise with heterochronic plasma transfer
• Chatrawee Duangjan, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Southern California: DCAF11/WDR23-dependent proteostasis mediates glucose and lipid handling
  
• Silvana Duran-Ortiz, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Ohio University: Determining the healthspan and senescent cell and DNA damage response status in long-lived mice with germline and adult-onset growth hormone receptor disruption
  
• Yasar Arfat Kasu, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California San Diego: Changes in ribosomal activity and proteostasis in hematopoietic stem cell aging
  
• Ekaterina Korotkevich, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California San Francisco: Identification of pathways connecting age-associated accumulation of mtDNA mutations with aging phenotypes
  
• Daniel Levine, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California San Francisco: Interrogating the Role of Epigenetic Signaling to PER2 in Healthful Adaptation to Calorie Restriction
  
• Heidi Pak, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Texas Southwestern: Identification of Feeding Entrainment Mechanisms in a Calorie Restricted Diet
  
• Ines Sturmlechner, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Mayo Clinic: Determinants regulating memory cell longevity and function in older adults
  
• Binsheng Wang, MD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Connecticut Health Center: Targeting p21Cip1-highly-expressing Cells to Improve Lifespan and Healthspan in Naturally Aged Mice
  

• Zhangying Chen, Northwestern University: Age-associated T-Cell Infiltrates Cause Differential Long-Term Neuropathology and Functional outcomes after Traumatic Brain Injury in Mice
• Stephanie DiLucia, Medical University of South Carolina: Evaluating the Effects of Diet-Induced Hyperinsulinemia on Insulin Receptor Transport across the Blood-Brain Barrier
  
• William Dion, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine: Nuclear speckle liquid-liquid phase separation dynamics in senescence and aging
  
• Yi-Tang Lee, Baylor College of Medicine: Investigating the role of mitochondrial GTP in age-related oocyte quality decline
  
• Jonathan Levi, University of Southern California: Investigating the mechanisms behind neural stem cell aging
  
• Michelle Rice, University of Southern California: The role of MOTS-c as a mitochondrial-encoded immunomodulator that reverses age-dependent macrophage maladaptation to metabolic stress
  
• Samantha Smith, University of Florida: Assessing the relationship of altered prefrontal cortex brain connectivity and hippocampal-striatal interactions in age-related cognitive decline
  
• Annie Yao, University of Connecticut Health Center: The role of beta-secretase 1 (BACE1) in modulating excitatory synaptic function and behavior
  
• Changtian Ye, Emory University: Investigating Aging-Exacerbated Brain Deficits Following Mild Head Trauma
  
• Daisy Zavala, Stony Brook University: Using biological age to predict cognitive performance
  

• Emilie Reas, PhD, University of California, San Diego: The mediating role of bloodbrain barrier dysfunction in effects of systemic inflammation on brain microstructure and memory
• Tara Tracy, PhD, Buck Institute for Research on Aging: Role of KIBRA in Age-Related Memory Loss

• Lei Zhang, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota: Single-cell epigenomic analysis of premature aging syndromes

• Samuel Beck, PhD, Associate Professor, Boston University School of Medicine: Big data-guided anti-aging drug discovery and its validation
• Charlotte Cecil, PhD, Associate Professor, Erasmus University Medical Center: What makes clocks tick? Mapping determinants of epigenetic age acceleration in early life
• Marco Demaria, PhD, Associate Professor, European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing (ERIBA): Targeting altered Ca2+ signaling in cellular senescence to extend healthy longevity
• Zhixun Dou, PhD, Assistant Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital: Loss of nuclear proteostasis in senescence and aging
• Peter Douglas, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Intracellular lipid surveillance and nuclear hormone receptor dynamics in age determination
• Nir Eynon, PhD, Group Leader, Monash University: Uncovering sex-specific epigenetic ageing molecules in response to exercise
• Aditi Gurkar, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh: A Nanoscale Detection Tool for Senescence
• Diana Jurk, PhD, Associate Professor, Mayo Clinic: Investigating liver-to-brain transmission of cellular senescence during aging
• Adam Konopka, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Interaction of Rapamycin and Exercise on Healthspan
• Sailendra Nichenametla, PhD, Associate Scientist, Orentreich Foundation for the Advancement of Science: Investigating the role of serinogenesis in regulating lipid metabolism
• Miranda Orr, PhD, Assistant Professor, Wake Forest University School of Medicine: Spatial proteogenomic profiling to determine the impact of senescent neurons on the aging brain
• Daniel Roh, PhD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Boston University School of Medicine: Targeting Wound Senescence to Improve Wound Healing in Aging
• Markus Schosserer, PhD, Junior PI, Medical University of Vienna: Targeting the epitranscriptome to promote healthy lifespan
• Kosaku Shinoda, PhD, Assistant Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine: Proper Control of Inflammatory Cell Death during Aging of Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT)
• Marlene Starr, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Kentucky: The Role of Adipose Tissue-Resident γδ T Cells in Age-Associated Inflammation and Metabolic Dysfunction
• Stefano Tarantini, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center: Intravital characterization of mitochondrial dysfunction in the aged brain endothelium
• Lindsay Wu, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, University of New South Wales: Overcoming ovarian failure to extend women's health and lifespan
• Ming Xu, PhD, Assistant Professor, UConn Health, UConn Center on Aging and the Department of Genetics & Genome Sciences at UConn School of Medicine: The synergistic benefits of metformin and senolytics on lifespan and healthspan

The 2022 Beeson Scholars are fully funded through the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

• Timothy Anderson, MD, MAS, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School: Optimizing prescribing decisions for hospitalized older adults with chronic conditions
  
• Katie Buck, MD, Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University: Establishing and Implementing Pneumonia Diagnosis in ED Older Adults: A Mixed Methods Approach
• Sevdenur Cizginer, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School: Optimizing care for older surgical patients: a theory-guided implementation science approach
• Elizabeth Dzeng, PhD, MD, MPH, MPhil, MS, Associate Professor of Medicine and Sociology, University of California, San Francisco: Understanding and addressing structural racism and its impact on the quality of end-of-life care in older Black adults
• Miyeon Jung, PhD, RN, FAHA, Assistant Professor, Indiana University School of Nursing: Virtual Reality and Computerized Cognitive Intervention for Mild Cognitive Impairment in Heart Failure
• Sikandar H Khan, DO, MS, Assistant Professor, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Indiana University School of Medicine: Reactive Oxygen Species in Respiratory Failure, Delirium, and Post-ICU Cognitive Impairment
• Meghan Mattos, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, University of Virginia School of Nursing: An Internet-based insomnia intervention for older adults with cognitive impairment to improve quality of life and disease trajectory
• Anaïs Rameau, MD, MPhil, MS, FACS, Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, Weill Cornell Medicine: Developing an App-Based Voice Clinical Decision Support Tool to Augment the Sensitivity of the Bedside Swallow Evaluation in Older Adults
• Katie Schenning MD, MPH, MCR, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University: Optimizing anesthesia to prevent postoperative cognitive and functional decline in older adults
• Mina S. Sedrak, MD, MS, Assistant Professor, City of Hope: Targeting Senescence to Improve Frailty in Older Cancer Survivors
• Corey B. Simon, DPT, PhD, Assistant Professor, Duke University School of Medicine: Stress Reactivity and Low Back Pain among Older Adults: Influences on Disability (ReLOAD)
• Jennifer Vincenzo, PT, MPH, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences: Developing and testing implementation strategies to support the STEADI for falls risk management in outpatient rehabilitation
  

MSTAR Students Funded at Weill Cornell Medical College

• Daniel Barbakoff, Weill Cornell Medical College: Circulating immunometabolic factors in the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease
  
• Dawn Chirko, Weill Cornell Medical College: Mechanism by Which Lipofuscin Causes Age‐Related Macular Degeneration
  
• Danielle Yerdon, Weill Cornell Medical College: Integration of Pain Identification and Communication Toolkit (PICT) into Managed Long-term Care (MLTC) Caregiver Training for Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRS)