AFAR and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Glenn Foundation Discovery Award:
Elaine Fuchs, PhD, Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor, Rockefeller University: Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Christina Camell, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota.
The Glenn Foundation Discovery Award was created to support research projects with strong potential to develop pioneering discoveries to understand the underlying biological mechanisms that govern normal human aging and its related physiological decline. Two three-year awards of $525,000 are made annually ($175,000 per year for three years).
Dr. Fuchs’ Discovery Award is titled “Staying youthful by preventing tissues from retaining life-long memories of past inflammatory experiences.” The skin epidermis is exposed to a lifetime of stressful environments that pose major health issues, particularly as we age. Dr. Fuchs and her team discovered that our epidermis keeps long-lasting nuclear (epigenetic) memories of local acute inflammation, enabling skin to react faster and more robustly, often years later, to diverse stresses. The mechanisms they are unearthing by studying epidermal stem cells suggest that all tissues of our body may be learning from experiences, with profound consequences, both beneficial and maladaptive, to tissue and even whole-body fitness. Dr. Fuchs seeks to devise methods to erase bad memories (age-related chronic inflammation, increased cancer risk) and keep good memories (faster wound-repair, broadened pathogen resistance). Learn more about Dr. Fuchs’ research at The Rockefeller University here.
Dr. Camell’s Discovery Award is titled “Macrophage inflammation; cellular identity and healthspan during aging.” Dr. Camell seeks to better understand the aging immune system, and specifically the role of macrophages (type of white blood cells that play a critical role in the immune system) play in cellular dysfunction. Dr. Camell and her team will investigate how macrophages cause loss of cellular function in metabolic tissues with the ultimate goal of maintaining youthful cellular function in critical metabolic organs. Learn more about Dr. Camell’s research at the University of Minnesota here.
Learn more about the Glenn Foundation Discovery Awards here.
AFAR is grateful to the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research for their support of this grant program.
