Dr. Nir Barzilai is a preeminent geroscience leader and the elected President of the Global Academy for Health & Lifespan Research. He is one of the major leaders of the revolution to treat one’s health rather than their diseases by targeting aging. This revolution is already taking place in cells, cities, and countries (recently, a longevity symposium at the Vatican).

He is the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research, a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics, the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging. Barzilai has made multiple seminal contributions to the field of geroscience.

Dr. Barzilai’s interests focus on several basic mechanisms in the biology of aging, including the biological effects of nutrients on extending life and the genetic determinants of life span. One focus of his research is on the genetics of exceptional longevity, for which we hypothesized and have demonstrated that centenarians have protective genes, which enable a delay in aging or the protection against age-related diseases. Indeed, he has discovered several longevity genes in humans and is further characterizing the phenotype and genotype of humans with exceptional longevity through an NIH-supported Program Project.

These studies have led to 2 initiatives. One, under the auspices of AFAR- The SuperAgers family study, to recruit 10,000 families of centenarians. Second, he is the PI of the FAST initiative to discover biomarkers of aging from existing clinical trials for the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and ARPAH to find biomarkers that change with gerotherapeutics.

He has conceived the TAME (Targeting/Taming Aging with Metformin) multicenter study. He received numerous grants, among them ones from the National Institute of Aging (NIA), the American Federation of Aging Research, and the Ellison Medical Foundation. Dr. Barzilai has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and textbook chapters. He was an advisor to the National Institutes of Health on several projects, initiatives, and study sections (currently on NIA-Biology). Dr. Barzilai is on the American Federation for Aging Research board, was its scientific director, and has served on several NIA study sections. He was a recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Beeson Fellow for Aging Research, the Senior Ellison Foundation award, the Paul Glenn Foundation award and the NIA- Nathan Shock Award and the recipient of the 2010 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction in Aging Research Award, the 2013 Rifkin lectureship and is the 2018 recipient of the IPSEN Longevity award.

He is an executive in the Longevity Biotech Association and has been involved with several biotechs as a board of director or SAB. He was also a founder of CohBar Inc., a biotech that develops mitochondrial-derived peptides as therapy for aging and its diseases. He is also a Healthy Longevity Medicine Association council member to disseminate gerotherapeutics and train longevity doctors responsibly.

He has been featured in prominent papers, podcasts, TV programs, and documentaries (among them, he is one of the main features in Ron Howard’s film “The Age of Aging” in National Geographic production, and in 3 TEDx and TEDMED). He has been consulting or presented the promise for targeting aging at The Singapore Prime Minister’s Office, the Prime Minister’s office in Israel, several International Banks, The Vatican (x2), Pepsico, Milken Institute (X5), Davos Economic Forum, and featured several times in each of- The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Economist and Wired Magazine and on CNN Sanjay Gupta podcast. His book Age Later was published in June 2020.