Glenn/AFAR Breakthroughs in Gerontology Awards
Sponsored by the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, in collaboration with the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), the "Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG)" initiative provided timely support to a small number of research projects which if successful offer significant promise of yielding transforming discoveries in the fundamental biology of aging. Up to two awards were given each year from 2005 through 2022. No new applications were accepted after 2022.
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2022 BIG Award Recipients
- Edward Chouchani, Ph.D.
- Associate Professor, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Defining the functional landscape of protein redox regulation during aging
- Omer Yilmaz, M.D., Ph.D.
- Associate Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: The role of dysregulated methionine metabolism in the aged intestinal stem cell stromal niche
2021 BIG Award Recipients
- Bradley Olwin, Ph.D.
- Professor, University of Colorado: Improving Skeletal Muscle Stem Cell Health to Rescue Age-Induced Decline of Skeletal Muscle Function
- Andrey Tsvetkov, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor, The University of Texas McGovern Medical School at Houston: G-quadruplex RNA and G-quadruplex RNA helicases in senescent astrocytes
2020 BIG Award Recipients
- Malene Hansen, Ph.D.
- Professor, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute: Non-canonical functions of autophagy genes in organismal lifespan
- Vittorio Sebastiano, Ph.D.
- Assistant Professor, Stanford School of Medicine: Epigenetic Reprogramming of cellular Aging: a novel paradigm to treat aging and aging-associated diseases
2019 BIG Award Recipients
- Ursula Jakob, Ph.D.
- Professor, University of Michigan: Role of early epigenetic events in stress resistance and lifespan
- Norbert Perrimon, Ph.D.
- Professor of Genetics, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School: Regulation of the aging process by molecules and pathways involved in organ communication
2018 BIG Award Recipients
- Peter Adams, Ph.D.
- Professor, Sanford-Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute – Testing the role of barriers to reprogramming in chromostasis and longevity
- M. Brandon Westover, M.D., Ph.D.
- Associate Professor of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital – Electroencephalogram-based Brain Age and its Relation with Cognitive Function and Sleep Quality
2017 BIG Award Recipients
- Pinchas Cohen, M.D.
- Dean, Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California – Characterization of the Healthspan Promoting Activity of the Mitochondrial Peptide Humanin
- William Mair, Ph.D.
- Associate Professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – The role of RNA splicing in TORC1 physiology in mammals
2016 BIG Award Recipients
- Rozalyn Anderson, Ph.D.
- Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison – The Role of GSK3beta in neuronal metabolism in the aging brain
- Shin-Ichiro Imai, M.D., Ph.D.
- Professor, Washington University School of Medicine – The role of adipose tissue in the systemic regulation of mammalian aging and longevity
2015 BIG Award Recipients
- David Marcinek, Ph.D.
- Associate Professor, University of Washington Medical Center – Mitochondrial oxidative stress alters aged muscle function through oxidation of the thiol proteome
- David Sabatini M.D., Ph.D.
- Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Reversing age-associated deterioration in intestinal stem and niche cells by targeting the mTORC1 and PPARo signaling pathways
2014 BIG Award Recipients
- Stephen Helfand, M.D.
- Professor of Biology, Brown University – Chromatin-regulated activation of retrotransposable elements – a novel molecular mechanism of aging
- Heinrich Jasper, Ph.D.
- Professor, Buck Institute for Research on Aging – Host/Commensal interactions and the age-related decline of intestinal proliferative homeostasis
2013 BIG Award Recipients
- Giovanni Bosco, Ph.D.
- California Institute of Technology: A novel protein disaggregase – from molecular mechanisms to novel cures
- Amy Pasquinelli, Ph.D.
- University of California, San Diego – Collapse of the MicroRNA Pathway During Aging
2012 BIG Award Recipients
- James Kirkland, MD, PhD
- Noaber Foundation Professor of Aging Research, Mayo Clinic: INK-ER-Cre mice: a novel tool for uncovering how senescent cells cause age-related dysfunction
- Shu-ou Shan, PhD, Professor of Chemistry
- California Institute of Technology: A novel protein disaggregase – from molecular mechanisms to novel cures
2011 BIG Award Recipients
- Thomas Johnson, PhD, Professor
- University of Colorado, Boulder: Dissection of the Stochastic Mechanisms Underlying Differential Longevity in Isogenic Populations of C. elegans
- William Sonntag, PhD, Professor
- University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center: Mechanisms for the Early Pleiotropic Actions of IGF-1 on Aging
2010 BIG Award Recipients
- Daniel Promislow, PhD, Professor
- University of Georgia: Causes and Consequences of Aging in Metabolomic Networks
- Peter S. Rabinovitch, MD, PhD, Professor
- University of Washington: Next Generation Discovery of MTOR Effects on Mrna Translation and the Proteome in Aging
2009 BIG Award Recipients
- Rochelle Buffenstein, PhD, Professor
- University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio: Mechanisms of Aging in the Longest-lived Rodent: the Role of Nrf2 Mediated Detoxification Processes
- Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Medicine
- Washington University School of Medicine: Calorie Restriction and Gene Expression in Humans
2007 BIG Award Recipients
- Rolf Bodmer, Ph.D., Professor
- The Burnham Institute: “Genetic Control of Cardiac Aging”
- Eduardo Nunes Chini, M.D., Ph.D., Consultant
- Mayo Clinic, School of Medicine: “The role of the CD38/NAD glycohydrolase as a regulator of longevity”
- Kathleen Collins, Ph.D., Professor
- University of California, Berkeley: “Telomerase Regulation as a Cause of Human Hemtopoietic Stem Cell Aging”
- Matt Kaeberlein, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
- University of Washington: “Sensory Mechanisms of Dietary Restriction in Caenorhabditis elegans”
2006 BIG Award Recipients
- Pankaj Kapahi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
- Buck Institute for Age Research
- Gordon Lithgow, Ph.D., Associate Professor
- Buck Institute for Age Research
- Gerald S. Shadel, Ph.D., Associate Professor
- Yale University
- Frank Slack, Ph.D., Associate Professor
- Yale University
2005 BIG Award Recipients
- Adam Antebi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
- Baylor College of Medicine, Huffington Center on Aging
- Scott D. Pletcher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
- Baylor College of Medicine, Huffington Center on Aging