On September 30th, 2026, CNN featured insights from AFAR Board Member and multiple grantee Nir Barzilai, MD, and Cristofalo Award recipient Daniel W. Belsky, PhD, on the approach of targeting the biology of aging rather than individual age-related diseases to extend healthspan.
The article also highlighted the FAST (Finding Aging Biomarkers by Searching Existing Trials) initiative, an initiative incubated and launched by AFAR in 2022 to identify biomarkers that respond to interventions using existing clinical trials and stored samples. FAST is now led by Dr. Belsky and is advancing through the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience (PROSPR) program.
In addition to serving on AFAR’s Board of Directors, Dr. Barzilai is the 2026 recipient of AFAR’s George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award, 2010 recipient of the Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction, a 1997 Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging Scholar, and a 1994 AFAR Research Grant recipient, as well as Co-Investigator of the AFAR SuperAgers Family Study. He also directs the Institute for Aging Research at the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is the President of the Academy of Health and Lifespan Research.
Dr. Belsky is AFAR’s 2025 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research recipient, as well as the Principal Investigator of the FAST Initiative launched by AFAR.
Read “Can aging be treated like a disease? Scientists are starting to find out” here.
