Glenn AFAR Junior Faculty
The major goal of this program is to assist in the development of the careers of junior investigators committed to pursuing careers in the field of aging research. The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research (GFMR) and AFAR support research projects concerned with understanding the basic mechanisms of aging, rather than disease-specific research. The awards provide up to $150,000 for one to two years of support to junior faculty (MDs and PhDs) to conduct research that will serve as the basis for longer term research efforts on the biology of aging. It is anticipated that approximately 10 grants of up to $150,000 each will be awarded in 2024.
For more information about the program, eligibility and application procedures, please visit AFAR.
american federation for aging research
55 West 39th Street, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10018 USA
888-582-2327 Toll Free
212-997-0330 Fax
2023 Junior Faculty Award Recipients
- Cory Baumann, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Ohio University: Role of Human Antigen R (HuR) in Skeletal Muscle Adaptation and Resiliency
- Daniel Czyz, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Florida: The role of monoculture isolates from the human microbiome on aging and stress responses
- Ana Daugherty, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Wayne State University: Brain Iron-Mediated Effects of Inflammation and Mitochondrial Metabolic Dysfunction on Cognitive Aging
- Hilary Grosso Jasutkar, MD, PhD
- Instructor of Neurology, Rutgers University: Synaptic Autophagy in Normal Cognitive Aging
- Shuo Han, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Duke University School of Medicine: Regulation of host aging and physiology by the human gut microbiota
- Roarke Kamber, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of California San Francisco: Identification of inter-cellular signaling axes that suppress senescent cell clearance by macrophages
- Hiroshi Kumagai, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Southern California: The novel mitochondrial microprotein PUTZ is a potential therapeutic target for aging-associated sarcopenia and frailty
- Ricardo Martínez Zamudio, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School: Senescence-driven disruption of monocyte identity in aging humans
- Denis Mogilenko, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Understanding dendritic cells as a driver of immune dysfunction in aging
- Allyson Palmer, MD, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Mayo Clinic: Cellular Senescence and Risk of Postoperative Delirium: Applying Proteomics to Identify Potential Therapeutic Targets
- Jude Phillip, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University: Deciphering functional subtypes of senescence at single-cell resolution
- Jessica Spinelli, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School: A Novel Strategy to Restore Mitochondrial Function in Aging
- Andrea Stavoe, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: Dynamic Regulation of Autophagy during Aging in Distinct Neuronal Types
- Qinchuan Wang, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University: CaMKII as a cause of age-related sarcopenia
2022 Junior Faculty Award Recipients
- Albert Almada, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Southern California: Mis-regulation of Stem Cell Activation Mechanisms Driving Muscle Dysfunction in the Elderly
- Ying Ann Chiao, PhD
- Assistant Member, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation: The regulation of mitochondrial NAD+ metabolism in the aging heart
- Anthony Joseph Covarrubias, PhD
- Assistant Professor, UCLA: The role of senescent macrophages as a driver of inflammaging and altered NAD+ metabolism in aging
- Carlos Manlio Díaz-García, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center: Casting light on energy metabolism throughout the anatomy of aging neurons
- Ilia Droujinine, PhD
- Scripps Research Fellow and Principal Investigator, Scripps Research: Characterization of adipose tissue-to-muscle communication pathways in aging
- Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Southern California: Sensing and signaling ER stress from neurons to periphery
- Kevin Murach, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas: Myc as the Driver of Cellular Epigenetic Rejuvenation in Skeletal Muscle
- Juan Pablo Palavicini, PhD
- Assistant Professor, UT Health San Antonio: Functional lipidomics reveals a novel molecular mechanism underlying improved metabolic function and
- lifespan extension in remarkably long-lived mice
- Daniel Roh, MD, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Medicine: Delineation of beneficial and detrimental roles of senescent cells in impaired wound healing of aging
- Noga Ron-Harel, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Technion: Restoring immunity by targeting the aged microenvironment
- Judith Simcox, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Madison: Discovery of ceramide signaling as a regulator of energy expenditure with aging
2021 Junior Faculty Award Recipients
- 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 degredation of circadian output signals in Drosophilia 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
- 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
2020 Junior Faculty Award Recipients
- Berenice Benayoun, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Gerontology, University of Southern California: A genome-to-phenome toolkit to accelerate research into aging in a naturally short-lived vertebrate model
- Frederick Bennett, MD
- Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: Microglia replacement to understand and treat brain aging
- Adam Bohnert, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University: Reversal of age-related mitochondrial damage in the C. elegans germline
- Christina Camell, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota: Aged Adipose B cells, inflammation and impaired metabolism
- Zhixun Dou, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital: Nuclear autophagy and senescence-associated inflammation
- Shenghui He, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: The role of epigenetic inheritance in shaping the transcriptional and epigenetic landscapes of the aging murine hematopoietic system
- Michael Lodato, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School: Single-cell analysis of transcriptional instability and somatic mutation in human neurons
- Claudia Moreno, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Washington: Aging one cell at a time: Heterogeneous aging behind the electrical dysfunction of the heart’s pacemaker
- Peter Van Galen, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital: Epigenetic mechanisms of stem cell expansion in the aging hematopoietic system
- Megan Weivoda, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Dentistry: Targeting and eliminating senescent pre-tumor cells to prevent cancer
2019 Junior Faculty Award Recipients
- Carlos Aguilar, PhD
- Assistant Professor: University of Michigan: Deconstructing stem cell aging through interact-omics
- Nausica Arnoult, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Boulder: DNA Double Strand Break repair pathway choice and repair fidelity during cellular and organismal aging
- Abigail Buchwalter, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of California, San Francisco: Defining drivers and consequences of ribosome biogenesis deregulation during mammalian aging
- Lindsay De Biase, PhD
- Assistant Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA: Regional differences in microglial lysosome function: implications for microglial aging and cognitive decline
- Brian DeBosch, MD, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Washington University School of Medicine: Activating the hepatic glucose fasting response to attenuate aging-related metabolic and autophagic defects
- Yarui Diao, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Duke University School of Medicine: Identification and application of cis-regulatory enhancer elements for muscle stem cell function and muscle regeneration in aging
- Sung Min Han, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Florida: Identifying genes that regulate mitochondrial positioning at the synapse during aging
- Mark McCormick, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center: Measurement of the conservation in mammalian cells of the effects of lifespan-extending tRNA synthetase inhibitors
- Maria Mihaylova, PhD
- Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University: Understanding the Effects of Dietary and Microbially Derived Metabolites on Gut Epithelial and Immune Cell Homeostasis During Aging
- Kapil Ramachandran, PhD
- Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University: Contributions and mechanisms of neuroproteasomes to brain aging
- A. Hunter Shain, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of California, San Francisco: Somatic mutation burden and aging in human skin
- Aakanksha Singhvi, PhD
- Assistant Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington: Molecular investigation of glial roles in neural aging
- Peter Sudmant, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley: Ultra-sensitive profiling of cell-type specific age-associated somatic mitochondrial mutational diversity
- George Sutphin, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Arizona: Understanding the interplay between tryptophan and NAD metabolism during aging
- Ming Xu, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut Health Center, Targeting p21high senescent cells to improve healthspan and lifespan
2018 Junior Faculty Award Recipients
- Joshua Baker, MD, MSCE
- Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania: Age and Obesity-related Alterations in Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Activity and Lipid Distribution, and Associations with Joint Inflammation and Cartilage Degeneration in Osteoarthritis
- Daniel Berry, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Cornell University: Age-dependent Decline of Beige Adipocyte Induction and its Metabolic Consequences
- Benjamin Cosgrove, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Cornell University: Single-cell Dissociation of Muscle Stem Cell Dysfunction in Human Aging
- Isha Jain, PhD
- University of California, San Francisco, Sandler Faculty Fellow, University of California, San Francisco: Hypoxia as a Therapy for Age-associated Proteotoxic Stress and Neurodegeneration
- Kishore Kuchibhotla, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University: Improving Cognitive Flexibility in Aging by Modulating Context-dependent Neural Circuits
- Po-Ru Loh, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School: Understanding the Etiology and Effects of Age-related Clonal Hematopoiesis
- Andreas Pfenning, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University: Cell Type-specific Epigenetic Decay Underlying Brain Aging
- Andrew Pickering, PhD
- Assistant Professor, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio: Determine if Genetic and Pharmacologic Proteasome Manipulation Can Prevent Age-related Cognitive Deficits in Mice and Flies
- Vivek Venkatachalam, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Northeastern University: Whole Brain Dynamics in Aging C. Elegans
- Kevin Wang, MD, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine: Rebooting the Nuclear Architecture as an Innovative Cellular Reprogramming Strategy to Reverse Aging
- Deborah Winter, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine: Uncovering the Role of Epigenomic Reprogramming on Monocyte Development in Aging
- Nilay Yapici, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Cornell University: Deciphering Changes in the Structure and Function of Neural Circuits that Regulate Homeostatic Drives During Aging