The Systems Biology of Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Speakers

Organizers

Andrea Califano, PhD

Columbia University

Aris Economides, PhD

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Gustavo Stolovitzky, PhD

IBM Research

Jennifer Henry, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Domenico Accili, MD

Columbia University

Dr. Domenico Accili is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Director of the Columbia University Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center in New York City. A graduate of the University of Rome, his training in Internal Medicine was served at the University Hospital Gemelli, also in Rome. Following a Fogarty Fellowship in the Diabetes Branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases, he became Chief of the Section on Genetics and Hormone action of the National Institute of Child Health at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Since 1999, he has served on the faculty at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and as an Attending Physician at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

Dr. Accili’s research has delved into the pathogenesis of diabetes, the integrated physiology of insulin action and mechanisms of pancreatic beta dysfunction. He is best known for the identification of a family of DNA-binding proteins that collectively regulate diverse pathophysiological processes, including liver glucose and lipid production, food intake, insulin production and adipogenesis. He has received numerous awards, including the 2003 Lilly Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement by the American Diabetes Association. His work has been published in leading medical research journals. He has served on several editorial boards, including the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Diabetes. He is a member of numerous advisory panels for academia, government and industry. He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. His work is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association, the Russ Berrie Foundation, and the Brehm Coalition.

David T. Burke, PhD

Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan

Dr. Burke is a Professor in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and an Asociate Research Scientist in the University of Michigan Institute of Gerontology. He has worked in the fields of genetics of mammalian late life phenotypes, including research on somatic epigenetic stability and on complex, multigenic genomewide analyses in the mouse. He received his BS from the University of Rochester, PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University prior to joining the faculty at Michigan in 1991.

David Galas, PhD

Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle

David Galas is Professor and Senior Vice President at the Institute for Systems Biology where he conducts his research, and leads multi-investigator projects. Formerly he was Chief Science Officer for Life Sciences of the Battelle Memorial Institute. He was previously Chancellor, Chief Scientific Officer and Norris Professor of Applied Life Science at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI), in Claremont, CA, a research and educational institution in the applied life sciences, which he co-founded. Prior to that Dr. Galas served as President and Chief Scientific Officer of Seattle-based Chiroscience R&D, Inc., a genomics and drug discovery company formed through the acquisition of Darwin Molecular Corporation, which Dr. Galas co-founded in 1993 and served as CEO and Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Galas has also served as Director for Health and Environmental Research at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, where he headed the DOE's Human Genome Project from 1990 to 1993, while on leave from the University of Southern California, where he was Professor of Molecular Biology and chairman.

Galas' PhD training was in physics, from the University of California. He has also held research positions at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His broad research interests include areas of molecular biology and human genetics, the development and application of new technologies in the life sciences, and the understanding of complex biological networks. He is the recipient of several awards including the Smithsonian Institution-Computer World Pioneer award in 1999. He has served on many federal, university and corporate boards, including several biotechnology companies he has co-founded, and on various advisory and National Research Council committees, including the Board on Life Science, and the National Cancer Policy Board. He chairs the Board of Directors of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. He is a lifetime National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.

*Additional speaker biographies coming soon