Nir Barzilai

Dr. Nir Barzilai holds the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research and serves as professor of medicine and genetics, director of the Institute for Geroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and director of the BIO-Vital Program. Barzilai is president of the Global Academy for Health & Lifespan Research, contributing to the advancement of geroscience and the shift in medicine toward targeting the biology of aging to extend healthspan.

Barzilai’s research centers on understanding why some individuals live past 100 in good health. As founder of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, his work addresses the challenges of aging to delay and prevent age-related diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. One of his studies focuses on 750 SuperAgers who maintained active lives into their nineties and beyond without experiencing major age-related diseases or cognitive decline. Barzilai is the founding director of the Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging and the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research, and directs the Longevity Genes Project, a genetics study of more than 600 families of centenarians and their children, all Ashkenazi Jews, to identify significant genetic variations.

Through this work, Barzilai identified several longevity genes in humans, including variants involved in cholesterol metabolism, metabolism, and growth. These genes appear to protect centenarians against cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and dementia.

Barzilai has translated laboratory discoveries into clinical initiatives, including the multicenter TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) study, which aims to establish biological aging as a target for therapeutic intervention. The study is designed to demonstrate that the multi-morbidities of aging can be delayed by metformin, and Barzilai collaborates with the FDA to develop this approach as a model for future efforts to delay aging and its associated diseases. He also launched the SuperAgers Family Study, which aims to recruit 10,000 families of centenarians, and serves as principal investigator of the FAST initiative, a collaboration between AFAR and ARPA-H to identify biomarkers of aging from clinical trials. Beyond academia, Barzilai co-founded biotech firms CohBar and Lifebiosciences, which develop therapies targeting aging to extend health.

Barzilai’s work has been featured in major newspapers, magazines, podcasts, television programs, documentaries, and TEDx and TEDMED talks. He appears in Ron Howard’s National Geographic documentary "The Age of Aging" and has advised or presented on targeting aging to leaders in government, industry, finance, and faith-based institutions, including the Prime Minister’s Offices of Singapore and Israel, the Vatican, the Milken Institute, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Barzilai has published more than 370 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and textbook chapters, and has advised the NIH on multiple projects and study sections. His book, "Age Later," explores the science of super agers—people who maintain active lives into their 90s and beyond without experiencing major diseases or cognitive decline. Barzilai is a fellow of the Association of American Physicians and the New York Academy of Medicine. His honors include the Beeson Award, Senior Ellison Foundation Award, Paul Glenn Foundation Award, NIA Nathan Shock Award, Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction in Aging Research, Rifkin Lectureship, IPSEN Longevity Award, and the George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from the American Federation for Aging Research.