Associate Professor, Boston University School of Medicine
Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research - 2022
What inspired you to pursue aging research?
As aging is an inevitable process of human life and the leading risk factor for many human diseases, aging and its detrimental health effects have become a major problem in our daily life. A deeper system-level understanding of the biology underlying aging will guide us to an effective therapeutic strategy that delays physiological deterioration during aging and the onset of age-related diseases. These achievable goals make the biology of aging the most exciting field of modern biology.
In your view, what does AFAR mean to the field, and what does it mean for you to receive an AFAR grant now?
AFAR has been an essential contributor in fostering collaborative research among various disciplines in the field, which is critical for the aging research community to move forward. As a junior faculty who is relatively new to aging research, I'm most excited about the opportunity to build a network with other AFAR investigators and establish active and constructive collaborations that will benefit the aging population.
What is exciting about your research’s potential impact?
Aging is an extremely complex, multifaceted process. To understand this process as a whole—an integrative and comprehensive viewpoint—is critical. Our research, based on the integrative/comparative analyses of various types of data generated by researchers over the world, will provide us with a better understanding and fundamental insights into the biology of aging, as well as the new therapeutic strategy against aging and associated diseases.
How would you describe your research to a non-scientist?
Finding an existing answer to new questions! Identification and validation of new and safe geroprotectors will be critical in extending the healthy lifespan of humans. In this era of big data, systematic profiling and analysis of exponentially growing data will guide us into a new and effective therapeutic strategy against aging and associated diseases.
