On January 11, 2022, The Wall Street Journal featured insights from multiple AFAR experts, including AFAR Senior Scientific Director Steven Austad, PhD, AFAR Scientific Director Nir Barzilai, MD, AFAR Board President James L. Kirkland, MD, PhD, AFAR President-Elect Thomas Rando, MD, PhD, as well as grantee Matt Kaeberlein, PhD, and Cristofalo Award winner Morgan Levine, PhD. As part of a series, "The Future of Everything," the article highlighted aging research working to develop interventions that could increase healthspan and lifespan using senolytics and drugs such as metformin and rapamycin.
The article also highlights the upcoming AFAR-managed Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) Trial, which will research the impact of metformin to provide proof-of-concept that aging can be targeted like a disease.
Dr. Austad is the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research, a Distinguished Professor, and Chair of the Department of Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the founding director of UAB’s Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging and co-director of the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research. He is the author of the book Why We Age, and his latest book, Methuselah’s Zoo: what nature can teach us about living longer, healthier lives is due out in 2022.
Dr. Barzilai is a 1994 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty recipient, a 1997 Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging scholar, a 2010 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction recipient, and the Director at the Institute for Aging Research and distinguished Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Dr. Kaeberlein is a 2006 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty recipient, and a 2007 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Award recipient. He is also the Co-Director at the University of Washington Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, the Director of the Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute, the President of the American Aging Association, the Co-Director of the Dog Aging Project, and a Professor at the University of Washington.
Dr. Kirkland is AFAR’s Board President, 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. Levine is a 2021 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research recipient and has served as a member of the National Scientific Advisory Council (NSAC) since 2020. She is also an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases) in the School of Medicine at Yale University.
Dr. Rando is a 2008 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Award recipient, and a 1999 Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging recipient. He is also the Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA and a Professor of Neurology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at UCLA.
Read the article with a subscription, “Can You Fight Aging? Scientists Are Testing Drugs to Help,” here.
Learn more about the upcoming TAME Trial here.
