WATCH the Scientific Panel featuring AFAR experts here.
WATCH the Conversation with honoree Dr. Mikael Dolsten of Pfizer and Dr. Francis Collins of the NIH here.
READ the Program Book here.
for his visionary impact advancing Pfizer’s scientific breakthrough leadership in small-molecule medicines, biotherapeutics, gene therapies and vaccines.
This panel will bring together experts across the basic biology of aging, age-related disease, immunology, and innovation to discuss:
Nir Barzilai, MD
AFAR Scientific Director and Grantee; Chair of Aging Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Ana Maria Cuervo, MD, PhD
AFAR Board Member and Grantee; Co-Director of the Institute for Aging Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
James L. Kirkland, MD, PhD
AFAR President and Grantee; Director of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging and Noaber Foundation Professor of Aging Research, Mayo Clinic
AFAR Board Member; Chief Medical Officer, Hospital Business Unit, Pfizer
Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH
Dean, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Drawing from his books Failure: Why Science is So Successful and Ignorance: How it Drives Science, Stuart Firestein, PhD, will reflect on how ideas like ignorance and failure, opposed to their common negative connotations, are critical drivers of scientific discovery and innovation. The remarkable story of the development of the COVID-19 vaccine is an especially cogent example of the need for these pluralistic approaches to deep biomedical questions from genetics to aging.
The path to the discovery of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was paved in bold ideas, multidisciplinary collaboration, and stalworth investment. Honoree Dr. Dolsten will be joined by Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for an intimate and engaging conversation to close the program, moderated by AFAR Senior Scientific Director Steven N. Austad, PhD.
The esteemed leaders will discuss how the Accelerating Medicines Partnership between Pfizer and the NIH helped provide a roadmap for the ACTIV Partnership Against COVID-19 and explore lessons learned from the success of a full range of vaccines against COVID-19 and their implications for the future.
Audience members will have the opportunity to submit questions as well.
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD
Director, National Institutes of Health
Steven N. Austad, PhD
Senior Scientific Director, AFAR
Mikael Dolsten, MD, PhD
Scientific Director, Pfizer
2021 AFAR Award of Distinction
AFAR is grateful for the generous support of our event sponsors
as of 10.04.21
Visionary
Laura and Nir Barzilai
Diana Jacobs Kalman
Sidley Austin Foundation
Weisfeld Family Foundation
Innovator
Charles and Barbara Beever
Ann M. Connolly and Gordon Medenica
Pioneer
Anonymous
Richard W. Besdine, MD and Terrie Fox Wetle, PhD
Friend
Harvey Jay Cohen, MD
The Gerontological Society of America
James L. Kirkland, MD, PhD
Joyce M. Yaeger
