Announcing the Third Cohort of the Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research

AFAR is pleased to announce the Third Cohort of the Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research, a grant program that enables junior investigators with labs in the US and Canada to advance research projects in basic biology of aging, as well as geroscience projects that translate advances in basic research on aging biology from the laboratory to the clinic, paving the way for healthspan-expanding therapeutics and treatments.

$6,750,000 will support eighteen investigators selected to receive this three-year award of $375,000 (total):

• Huan Bao, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Virginia: Molecular mechanisms of Annexin-mediated membrane repair in preventing premature senescence
• Itay Budin, PhD, Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, University of California, San Diego:
  Functional roles of plasmalogens and their loss in aging cell membranes
• Junyue Cao, PhD, Associate Professor, The Rockefeller University: Decipher the Cell Regulatory Network of Mammalian Aging at the Scale of the Whole Organism
• Brianne Connizzo, PhD, Assistant Professor in Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering, Boston University: Senescence Disrupts Tissue Remodeling and Repair
• Jia Guo, PhD, Assistant Professor, Columbia University: Mapping the Spatial-Temporal Patterns of Normal Brain Aging Using Multi-Site T1w Structural MRI and AI-Driven CBV Analysis
• Ramin Herati, MD, Assistant Professor, NYU Grossman School of Medicine: Echoes of the past: mechanisms of poor vaccine responses due to age-associated inflammation
• Weishan Huang, PhD, Associate Professor, Louisiana State University: Mechanisms of Lung Immune Memory Decline During Aging
• Emma Johnson, PhD, Assistant Professor, Washington University School of Medicine: Elucidating environmental context-dependent genetic variation related to aging and lifespan in humans
• Hongjie Li, PhD, Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine: Building Systematic Brain-Body Communication and Personalized Aging Trajectories
• Katharina Maisel, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Maryland: Investigating changes in the physical environment in the lymph node that alter immune cell functions in aging
• Jerome Mertens, PhD, Associate Professor, University of California, San Diego: Metabolic regulation of resilience in aging human neurons
• Hadi Nia, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University: Inflammaging in the Lung: Dissecting the Impact of Aging on pulmonary vs. circulatory factors
• Mattia Quattrocelli, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati: The Carnosine Clock Ticks for Healthy Aging
• Jason Sheltzer, PhD, Assistant Professor, Stanford University: Investigating loss of the Y chromosome as a targetable driver of aging-related pathologies
• Noah Snyder-Mackler, PhD, Associate Professor, Arizona State University: Molecular causes and consequences of inter- and intra-individual heterogeneity in aging
• Peter van Galen, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital: Hematopoietic Stem Cell Diversity Driving Age-Associated Inflammation
• Deborah Winter, PhD, Associate Professor, Northwestern University: Understanding the role of noisy chromatin deregulation in aging macrophages
• Tuoqi Wu, PhD, Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Understand FOXP1 as a gatekeeper of T cell aging

Hevolution Foundation also recently released the second edition of the Global Healthspan Report, which presents new evidence that aging, once seen as an inevitable decline, can be managed through science, policy, and innovation to drive sustainable growth and wellbeing. Drawing on two global surveys and extensive investment data, the report positions healthspan, the years of life spent in good health, as both a catalyst for scientific and economic progress. Download here.

Read a related press release here.

Discover more of AFAR’s most recent grant recipients here.