On December 16, 2021, The Boston Globe featured insights from AFAR President James L. Kirkland, MD, PhD, and Board Member S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, as well as Irving S. Wright Award recipient Leonard P. Guarente, PhD. The Globe article explores if pandemic-related conditions could impact or accelerate aging. They advised caution, noting that no peer reviewed research that states the pandemic has accelerated aging in a meaningful or observable way yet.
Dr. Kirkland is a 2012 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Award recipient, and a 2020 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction recipient. He is also a distinguished Professor of Medicine and Physiology, as well as the Director at the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Olshansky is a 2016 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction recipient. He is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago, and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Chief Scientist at Lapetus Solutions, Inc.
Dr. Guarente is a 2015 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction receipt, and the Novartis Professor of Biology at MIT.
Read the article, “Is the pandemic aging us in dog years? Science is trying to prove it (but we already know the answer),” here.
