Dr Nir Bzilai — Advancing Geroscience & Gerotherapeutics – Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Advancing Geroscience & Gerotherapeutics – Dr. Nir Bzilai MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Dr. Nir Barzilai, MD (https://www.einsteinmed.edu/faculty/484/nir-barzilai/) is the Director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research and of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging. He is Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics and member of Divisions of Endocrinology & Diabetes and Geriatrics.
Dr. Barzilai is interested in the biology and the genetics behind aging. His team has focused on the genetics and longevity of centenarians, hypothesizing and demonstrating that these individuals may possess novel protective genes which delay aging and protect against age-related illnesses. His second area of research, for which he has received an NIH Merit Award, is the metabolic decline during aging. His team hypothesizes the brain is the one that leads this decline, with some interesting neuro-endocrine links.
Dr. Barzilai leads an international effort that aims to approve drugs which can target aging. The Targeting Aging With METformin study (TAME) was designed to prove that a number of diseases associated with aging (multi-morbidities), can be treated simultaneously by metformin. This protocol is being approved by the FDA.
Dr. Barzilai is the recipient of numerous grants from organizations such as the National Institute on Aging, American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), Ellison Medical Foundation, and The Glenn Medical Foundation. He has published more than 280 peer reviewed papers, book chapters, and reviews. He serves as an advisor for the NIH in several projects, and is a member of several editorial boards.
Dr. Barzilai serves on the board of American Federation for Aging Research as co-scientific Director and on several NIA Study Sections. He is the founder of CohBar Inc. a biotech firm that develops mitochondrial-derived peptides for treatment of aging and its diseases.
Dr. Barzilai is the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Beeson Fellow in Aging Research Award, Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Aging Award and the Paul F. Glenn Foundation Award. He also received the NIA Nathan Shock Award in 2010, the Irving S. Wright Award for Distinction in Aging Research in 2010 and the IPSEN Longevity Prize in 2016.
Born in Israel in 1948, Dr. Barzilai was a chief medic and physician for the Israel Defense Forces. He completed his residency at Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem after graduating from the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine of Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He worked in a refugee’s camp in Cambodia during the war (1979-1980), and built a nutrition village in the Zulu homeland (1983-Kwazulu). He completed two fellowships, one at Yale (Metabolism), and the other at Cornell (Endocrinology and Molecular Medicine). He was invited to speak at the 4th Israeli President Conference in 2012 and a Vatican Conference on efforts to improve cures (2013,2016). He also took part in Global Initiatives, spoke at The Milken Global Institute and Asian Megatrends. He is a advisor to the Prime Minister of Singapore for Aging.
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