New York, NY and Santa Barbara, CA — The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research announce the 2021 recipients of three grant programs: the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty, the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowships in Aging Research, and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Awards. Collectively, these three grant programs will provide close to $2,260,000 in support of biomedical research on aging.
The Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Awards provide $300,000 for research projects that offer significant promise of yielding transforming discoveries in the fundamental biology of aging or that build on early discoveries with the potential for translation to clinically relevant strategies, treatments, and therapeutics to benefit human aging and healthspan.
The Grants for Junior Faculty provide early career investigators with up to $100,000 to support research focused on biological aging processes. Ten grants are awarded in 2021.
The Postdoctoral Fellowships in Aging Research support postdoctoral fellows who research basic mechanisms of aging and/or translational findings that have potential to directly benefit human health. This year, eleven $60,000 Fellowships are awarded.
A complete listing of the 2021 recipients can be found below.
The awardees are selected through a competitive process by committees of distinguished scientists working in the field of aging research.
"As AFAR celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2021, we are grateful for our decades-long relationship with the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and their generous support of these grant programs," notes Stephanie Lederman, EdM, AFAR Executive Director. "Together, AFAR and the Glenn Foundation have helped support the scientific pipeline at major research institutions nationwide, advancing the most promising biomedical research in aging."
The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR have collaborated for four decades. In addition to establishing the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, the late Paul F. Glenn was a founding member of the AFAR Board of Directors. In addition to their grant programs, AFAR and the Glenn Foundation also co-host annual scientific meetings to foster the exchange of ideas and to promote new scientific collaborations in biology of aging research. The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research has invested close to $30 million and supported 559 investigators through its programs and other initiatives with AFAR.
“The research supported through these 2021 grants will encourage the development of novel approaches aimed at helping us live healthier, longer,” notes K. Leonard Judson, CEO of The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research. "The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research is pleased to partner with AFAR to support early career and established investigators through these three grant programs."
2021 Grant Recipients
Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Awards
Bradley Olwin, PhD, Professor, University of Colorado: Improving Skeletal Muscle Stem Cell Health to Rescue Age-Induced Decline of Skeletal Muscle Function
Andrey Tsvetkov, PhD, Assistant Professor, The University of Texas McGovern Medical School at Houston: G-quadruplex RNA and G-quadruplex RNA helicases in senescent astrocytes
Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty
Rachel Arey, PhD, Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine: Identifying Neuropeptide Signals that Slow Cognitive Aging
Annika Barber, PhD, Assistant Professor, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey:
Age and high-fat diet interact to accelerate degradation of circadian output signals in Drosophila melanogaster
Kristopher Burkewitz, PhD, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University: Aberrant endoplasmic reticulum dynamics as a driver of age-onset dysfunction
Chi-Kuo Hu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University: Understanding diapause and its ability to suspend aging in vertebrates
Janine Kwapis, PhD, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University: Reversing a persistent “nighttime state” that limits memory in aging mice
Lolita Nidadavolu, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University: The role of IL-6 in promoting skeletal muscle and mitochondrial dysfunction in frailty
Kosaku Shinoda, PhD, Assistant Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine: Mitochondrial and Molecular Mechanism of Brown Adipose Tissue Regression
Reyhan Westbrook, PhD, Instructor, Johns Hopkins University: The Effects of Kynurenine Pathway Manipulation on Metabolism and Healthspan in Mice
Christopher Wiley, PhD, Scientist II, Assistant Professor, Tufts University: Dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid: An endogenous lipid that kills senescent cells
Tuoqi Wu, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Reprogram aged CD8 T cells to reverse immunosenescence
Additional major funders of the Grants for Junior Faculty include: The AFAR Board of Directors, Anonymous, The Rose Badgeley Trust, The James A. and Dorothy R. Brunn Foundation, The Irene Diamond Fund, David W. Gore, Diana Jacobs Kalman, The Marion Esser Kaufmann Foundation, Diane Nixon, and The Irving S. Wright Endowment.
Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowships in Aging Research
Yann Cormerais, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: Genetic dissection of the insulin/IGF1-mTOR pathway in mammalian aging
Madison Doolittle, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mayo Clinic: Investigation of osteo-lineage cells as primary mediators of senescence in the bone microenvironment
Sooyeon Lee, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University: The pathophysiological role of Succinate dehydrogenase deficiency in β-cell aging and diabetes
Claire Leveau, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, Yale University: Impact of Catechol-O-methyltransferase in the neuro-immune regulation of metabolic disorders
Yuancheng Lu, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT: A genomic search for novel rejuvenation cocktails
Pradeep Ramalingam, MD, PhD, Research Associate, Hackensack University Medical College: Rejuvenation of aged hematopoietic stem cells by suppression of bone marrow inflammaging
Anand Saran, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California San Diego: Using Engineered Native Bacteria To Understand The Relationship Between Altered Microbial Functional Dynamics and Age-Related Circadian Dysmetabolism
Tina Sing, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California Berkeley: Leveraging gametogenesis-specific rejuvenation pathways to counteract cellular aging
Yuting Tan, MD, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School: Multiplex characterization of cytoplasmic chromatin poly-complex in senescence
Lei Zhang, PhD, Research Associate, University of Minnesota: Targeting cellular senescence with novel senotherapeutics by design to extend healthspan
Zeda Zhang, PhD, Research Scholar, Sloan Kettering Institute: Identifying targets for senolytic therapies from the cell surface proteome of senescent cells
Additional support for the Postdoctoral Fellowships provided by Michael Shen, MIT’13.
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About the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research — Founded in 1965 through the philanthropy of Paul F. Glenn, the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, Inc., (“GFMR”) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit private foundation. The mission of the GFMR is to extend the healthy years of life through research on mechanisms of biology that govern normal human aging and its related physiological decline, with the objective of translating research into interventions that will extend healthspan with lifespan. Over the past two decades the GFMR has funded over $110 Million in research in support of its mission, including the establishment of Paul F. Glenn Centers for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, Salk Institute, University of Michigan, Mayo Clinic, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Learn more at www.glennfoundation.org.
About AFAR — The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is a national non-profit organization that supports and advances pioneering biomedical research that is revolutionizing how we live healthier and longer. For four decades, AFAR has served as the field’s talent incubator, providing more than $189 million to close to 4,300 investigators at premier research institutions nationwide. A trusted leader and strategist, AFAR also works with public and private funders to steer high quality grant programs and interdisciplinary research networks. AFAR-funded researchers are finding that modifying basic cellular processes can delay — or even prevent — many chronic diseases, often at the same time. They are discovering that it is never too late — or too early — to improve health. This groundbreaking science is paving the way for innovative new therapies that promise to improve and extend our quality of life—at any age. Learn more at www.afar.org or follow AFARorg on Twitter and Facebook.