We are pleased to announce, that the Global Healthspan Extension Consortium has a new co-coordinator: Luigi Ferrucci
Prof. Luigi Ferrucci. MD, PhD
Scientific Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. Dr. Ferrucci is a geriatrician and epidemiologist internationally recognized for his pioneering contributions to the biology and epidemiology of human aging, and for defining the causal pathways leading to progressive physical and cognitive decline in older persons. Since May 2011, he has served as Scientific Director of the NIA, and since 2002 as Chief of the Longitudinal Studies Section and Director of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) — the world’s longest-running scientific study of human aging, initiated in 1958. He was the Principal Investigator of the landmark InCHIANTI study in Tuscany, Italy, and has made major contributions to the design of many of the world’s most influential aging cohorts, including the European Longitudinal Study on Aging, the Women’s Health and Aging Study, the ICare Dicomano Study, and the AKEA study of Sardinian centenarians. Dr. Ferrucci received his Medical Degree and Board Certification in Internal Medicine (1980) and Geriatrics (1982), and a PhD in Biology and Pathophysiology of Aging (1998) from the University of Florence, Italy.
Dr. Ferrucci’s research combines clinical geriatrics, epidemiology, systems biology, proteomics, and multi-omics approaches to understand the mechanisms of frailty, sarcopenia, mitochondrial decline, inflammaging, and the wide inter-individual variability of the aging trajectory. He is a globally recognized leader in the development, harmonization, and validation of biomarkers of aging, having co-led the seminal 2024 Nature Medicine consensus paper “Validation of biomarkers of aging” together with Steve Horvath and other consortium members, as well as the influential 2023 Cell paper “Biomarkers of aging for the identification and evaluation of longevity interventions.” His scientific output places him among the most cited scientists in the world in clinical and aging sciences, with more than 450,000 citations and over 1,600 peer-reviewed publications (Google Scholar). He is a Member of the Association of American Physicians and has received numerous international awards for his contributions to geroscience. Through his dual leadership of the NIA Intramural Research Program and the BLSA, Dr. Ferrucci brings to the Global Health Span Extension Consortium unparalleled access to deep-phenotyped, multi-omic longitudinal aging data, and long-standing institutional expertise in translating aging biology into clinical and public-health strategies for healthspan extension.
Datasets:
Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA), and InCHIANTI