UW Medicine

Jonathan An

Jonathan An

Departments

Roles

Dr. An is an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Oral Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. Dr. An obtained his DDS degree from the University of Washington in 2016 and his Ph.D. in 2019. He is a UW Magnuson Scholar and recipient of a graduate training award from the […]

Read More…


Phil Abitua

Phil Abitua

Titles

Assistant Professor

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Phil Abitua is an assistant professor in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. The Abitua lab works on annual killifish, an emerging model to study aging due to its remarkable adaptation to an ephemeral environment, which compressed its lifespan to approximately 4-6 months. We are interested in how environmental pressures […]

Read More…


David Baker

David Baker

Titles

Professor of Biochemistry
Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences
Director, Institute for Protein Design

Departments

,

Roles

,

Innovation in protein design to target aging and age-related disease Dr. Baker has pioneered methods to predict and design the three-dimensional structures of proteins. He is the Henrietta and Aubrey Davis Endowed Professor in Biochemistry and an adjunct professor of Genome Sciences, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics. He serves as the Director of […]

Read More…


William Banks

William Banks

Titles

Professor, Division of Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine
Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science

Departments

, ,

Roles

,

Decline in blood-brain barrier function during aging Dr. Banks is Professor, Division of Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine and Associate Director for Research of the Puget Sound Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center. The major focus of his research is the study of how the brain and body communicate with one another through the transfer of […]

Read More…


Antonio Bedalov

Antonio Bedalov

Titles

Associate Member, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Departments

,

Roles

,

Genome replication and its role in aging Dr. Bedalov is an Associate Member in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.  Dr. Bedalov is a bone marrow transplant specialist who treats people for blood disorders, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and myelodysplastic syndrome.  He runs an active research laboratory that uses S. […]

Read More…


Celeste Berg

Celeste Berg

Titles

Professor of Genome Sciences
Co-Director, Molecular and Cellular Biology Program

Departments

Roles

,

The Berg lab studies the effect of mutations that disrupt cell fate and cell migration during development. Using Drosophila as a model system, they explore how gene dysregulation impacts organ structure and function, leading to reduced viability and fertility. The underlying cell and molecular mechanisms involved in these processes also contribute to human disorders, for […]

Read More…


Jason Bielas

Jason Bielas

Titles

Associate Member, Translational Research Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Affiliate Association Professor, Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

,

Roles

,

Role of DNA mutation in aging and cancer Dr. Bielas is an Associate Member in the Translational Research Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and an Affiliate Associate Professor in the UW Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology. He has a long-standing interest in the relationships between aging, mutagenesis, and cancer. His past […]

Read More…


Alessandro Bitto

Alessandro Bitto

Titles

Acting Instructor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Bitto is an Acting Instructor in the Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology. His research is focused on understanding the interaction between biological aging, mitochondrial function, and metabolic disease. Dr. Bitto was a BMHA post-doctoral fellow on the Genetic Approaches to Aging Training Grant from 2013-2016 and is the recipient of a post-doctoral research […]

Read More…


Matt Bush

Matt Bush

Titles

Associate Professor

Departments

,

Roles

,

The Bush Lab works at the interface of analytical and biophysical sciences. We develop mass spectrometry and ion mobility spectrometry technologies that provide novel insights into structures and assembly of biomolecular machines and biotherapeutics, and apply these technologies to targets that are heterogeneous, dynamic, and interact with complex chemical matrixes. […]

Read More…


Marie Davis

Marie Davis

Titles

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Roles

,

Dr. Davis is a movement disorder neurologist and researcher at the VA Puget Sound Healthcare System and and Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying the production and spread of pathogenic protein aggregation in aging and aging-related neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Parkinson’s […]

Read More…


Maitreya Dunham

Maitreya Dunham

Titles

Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

Roles

, , , ,

Aneuploidy, evolution, and aging. Dr. Dunham develops and applies genomic tools to study genome evolution and genetic variation in yeast and humans. She has a special interest in how gene and chromosome copy number variation contributes to adaptation, the mechanisms by which such variation arises, and the relationship between aneuploidy and aging.  They utilize the budding […]

Read More…


Dan Eisenberg

Dan Eisenberg

Titles

Associate Professor of Anthropology
Adjunct Associate Professor of Biology

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Eisenberg is a biological anthropologist who studies how evolution has shaped human biology and aging. Dan’s research is primarily on telomere biology and has principally been in collaboration with population-based studies in non-western contexts such as the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey in the Philippines and the Tsimane’ Amazonian Panel Study in Bolivia. […]

Read More…


Anna Gillespie

Anna Gillespie

Titles

Assistant Professor

Departments

,

Roles

,

The Gillespie Lab strives to understand how the neural mechanisms underlying memory processes degrade over the course of healthy aging and in the context of neurodegenerative disease. The lab uses in vivo electrophysiology to record simultaneously from hundreds of hippocampal neurons in rats as they learn and perform complex memory-dependent tasks. We use advanced computational […]

Read More…


Kelley Harris

Kelley Harris

Titles

Assistant Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

,

Roles

,

Dr. Harris uses population genetic theory and high-throughput biological sequence analysis to study recent evolutionary history in humans and other species. One are of particular interest is the evolution of mutagenesis the forces that control DNA replication fidelity, the mutational breakdown of established traits, and the ultimate origin of new traits. Although DNA is replicated and […]

Read More…


James Hurley

James Hurley

Titles

Professor of Biochemistry

Departments

Roles

The Hurley lab focuses on understanding how energy metabolism is controlled in photoreceptors and how this changes with age. In darkness, photoreceptors consume energy rapidly to offset the leakage of ions across the plasma membrane. Light stops that leakage but it introduces qualitatively different energy demands. Dr. Hurley and his colleagues are investigating how the […]

Read More…



C. Dirk Keene

C. Dirk Keene

Titles

Associate Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

Dr. Keene received his education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology) and the University of Minnesota (M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience). His post-graduate medical training in Anatomic Pathology and Neuropathology was at the University of Washington where he earned a faculty position in Neuropathology. Currently, Dr. Keene is […]

Read More…


Scott Kennedy

Scott Kennedy

Titles

Associate Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

, ,

Dr. Kennedy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. He has a strong interest in the role of the fidelity mechanisms that cells employ to maintain genetic information and the ways these mechanisms are involved in diseases of aging. Research in the Kennedy lab focuses on developing and using Next-Generation […]

Read More…


Bernard Khor

Bernard Khor

Titles

Affiliate Assistant Professor

Departments

,

Roles

,

Dr. Khor’s lab is focused on understanding healthy aging through the lens of Down syndrome. Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal condition, and immune dysregulation significantly impairs the health of these individuals. This is manifest by predisposition to autoimmunity, susceptibility to infections and impaired vaccine response, amongst other features. Recent work in the lab […]

Read More…


Mary-Claire King

Mary-Claire King

Titles

Professor of Genome Sciences
Professor of Medical Genetics

Departments

,

Roles

,

Aging factors in complex heritable conditions. Dr. King’s group uses next generation sequencing approaches to identify genes responsible for complex human conditions. Since the 1970s, her group has exploited approaches from genetics, then molecular biology, then genomics to discover and characterize genes for inherited disease. There are four areas of her work that offer insights […]

Read More…


Rachel Klevit

Rachel Klevit

Titles

Edmond H. Fischer/WRF Endowed Chair in Biochemistry
Adjunct Professor of Chemistry
Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology

Departments

, ,

Roles

,

Understanding of molecular recognition, and interactions that play important roles in aging and disease  Dr. Klevit is the Edmond H. Fischer/WRF Endowed Chair in Biochemistry, an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology, and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry. Current research in Dr. Klevit’s laboratory is directed towards an understanding of fundamental molecular recognition events involved in the process […]

Read More…


Brian Kraemer

Brian Kraemer

Titles

Associate Director, Research Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center
Research Professor

Departments

,

Roles

,

As an investigator at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Dr. Kraemer’s research explores how protein aggregation contributes to neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Kraemer has developed animal models of the TDP-43 pathology seen in ALS and the tau pathology seen in Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias using both transgenic mice and transgenic C. elegans. Dr. […]

Read More…


Patricia Kramer

Patricia Kramer

Titles

Professor

Departments

Roles

,

Prof. Patricia Kramer is an evolutionary biomechanist whose research interest spans millions of years from the origins of bipedalism to the locomotion patterns of modern humans. She has investigated recovery of function after lower limb injury, assessed osteoarthritis development in aging humans and nonhuman primates, examined the energetics of walking on slopes with burdens, and […]

Read More…


Warren Ladiges

Warren Ladiges

Titles

Professor of Comparative Medicine

Departments

Roles

, ,

Geropathology and mouse models in translational geroscience Dr. Ladiges is Professor of comparative medicine and Director of the Geropathology Research Network and the UW Nathan Shock Center Geropathology Resource. He has extensive experience in the pathobiological evaluation and modeling of mice for preclinical aging and intervention studies and has been a leader in the application […]

Read More…


Su-In Lee

Su-In Lee

Titles

Associate Professor, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
Associate Professor, Genome Sciences

Departments

,

Roles

, , , ,

Understanding aging through explainable machine learning The Lee lab seeks to develop explainable AI for life sciences.  Explainable in this context means understanding which features drive the prediction.  The Lee lab has been collaborating with the Kaeberlein lab to develop and apply machine learning to aging biology, with the initial goal of using noisy human […]

Read More…


Nicolas Lehrbach

Nicolas Lehrbach

Titles

Assistant Professor

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Nicholas Lehrbach’s research focuses on discovering the cellular pathways that normally function to remove unwanted proteins, and how they become mis-regulated in disease. High levels of abnormal or damaged proteins is a cellular feature of aging, cancer, adult-onset neurodegenerative diseases, and many rare genetic disorders. Dr. Lehrbach and his team use C. elegans to […]

Read More…


Michael MacCoss

Michael MacCoss

Titles

Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

Roles

, , , , ,

Applications of mass spectrometry in the biology of aging The focus of Dr. MacCoss’ laboratory is in the development and application of cutting edge mass spectrometry based technologies for the analysis of complex protein mixtures. His primary area of expertise is in protein biochemistry, nanoflow liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry instrumentation, and computational analysis of mass […]

Read More…


David Marcinek

David Marcinek

Titles

Professor of Radiology
Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering
Adjunct Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

, ,

Roles

, , , ,

Dr. Marcinek joined the UW faculty in 2006. He has over 15 years of experience developing and applying innovative tools to study mitochondrial biology in chronic disease and aging. A main focus of his laboratory is to understand how age-related changes in mitochondrial function at the biochemical and organelle levels translate to changes in in […]

Read More…


Alexander Mendenhall

Alexander Mendenhall

Titles

Assistant Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

, , , ,

Dr. Mendenhall’s laboratory utilizes the nematode C. elegans to understand how and why genetically identical populations of cells and animals in the same environment age differently. How much and what kind of physiological variation is intrinsic/chance based, or is programmed and heritable? The lab takes the approach of directly observing events inside of living cells […]

Read More…


Dana Miller

Dana Miller

Titles

Associate Professor of Biochemistry

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Miller’s lab uses C. elegans to define relationships between proteostasis, the responses to hypoxia and hydrogen sulfide, and fasting. This work is also at the crux of understanding the relationships between stress response and aging. She has found that protein homeostasis is disrupted by exposure to specific hypoxic O2 concentrations [66]. One goal of […]

Read More…


Claudia Moreno

Claudia Moreno

Titles

Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics

Departments

Roles

,

Molecular Basis of Aging The goal of the Moreno lab is to understand how the function and regulation of ion channels change during the natural process of aging. Aging comes with a vast set of impairments, hearing loss, cardiac dysfunction, and hypertension, are only a few on the list. Most of these impairments are caused […]

Read More…


Leo Pallanck

Leo Pallanck

Titles

Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

Roles

,

Mitochondrial quality control in aging. Much of Dr. Pallanck’s current work stems from his studies of Drosophila homologs of the Parkinson’s disease-related genes parkin and PINK1. His work on Parkin and PINK1 led to his hypothesis that these factors promote the degradation of damaged mitochondria through mitophagy, a mitochondrial-selective form of autophagy. Work in many […]

Read More…


Daniel Promislow

Daniel Promislow

Titles

Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology
Professor of Biology

Departments

,

Roles

, , , ,

Dr. Promislow studies natural genetic variation in aging and reproduction. His research is focused on aging in several systems – the fruit fly, companion dogs, and humans. He uses a diversity of approaches in his lab, including molecular and quantitative genetics, evolutionary theory, and systems biology to construct and analyze genetic and metabolomic networks. Among […]

Read More…


Christine Queitsch

Christine Queitsch

Titles

Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

Roles

,

Gene regulation and heritable phenotypic variation in aging The Queitsch lab focuses on two related fields: the genetic architecture of complex traits and the role of gene regulation and protein folding in generating heritable phenotypic variation – including phenotypes of aging. We advance complex trait genetics by ascertaining uncharacterized sequence variation and by resolving the […]

Read More…


Peter Rabinovitch

Peter Rabinovitch

Titles

Professor, Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology
Joint Full Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Departments

Roles

,

Mitochondrial function and healthspan Peter Rabinovitch has served on the faculty of the Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology since 1983. He has been an active investigator in the biology of aging throughout his career, is the author of over 290 peer-reviewed publications, and is the founding director of the UW Nathan Shock Center of […]

Read More…


Shane Rea

Shane Rea

Titles

Associate Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

,

C. elegans aging and healthspan extension Dr. Rea is an Associate Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology. His laboratory utilizes the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to probe the fundamental mechanisms of aging and mitochondrial dysfunction in humans. His research spanning three decades has revealed that nematode lifespan is controlled by a roughly equal mix of genetics, […]

Read More…


May J. Reed

May J. Reed

Titles

Associate Professor of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine
Section Chief, Harborview Medical Center
Medical Director, Senior Care Clinic

Departments

,

Roles

,

Dr. Reed graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She came to University of Washington to train in clinical geriatrics and aging research. Dr. Reed is Section Chief of Geriatric Medicine at Harborview, Medical Director of the HMC Senior Care Clinic and UW Associate Professor in […]

Read More…


Mike Regnier

Mike Regnier

Titles

Professor of Bioengineering

Departments

Roles

,

Mechanisms of tissue dysfunction during aging. Dr. Regnier is a Professor and Associate Chair for Research & Development in the department of Bioengineering at UW.  Dr. Regnier’s research goal is to develop novel approaches to prevent or restore age- and disease-related loss of muscle function.  Approaches include protein, cell & tissue engineering and gene therapy.  […]

Read More…


Rosana Risques

Rosana Risques

Titles

Associate Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

, ,

Genomic instability, cancer and aging The main focus of Dr. Risques’ research is the study of the molecular mechanisms that link genomic instability and aging. The main molecular alterations that her lab studies are telomere shortening, mitochondrial dysfunction, and age-related accumulation of somatic mutations.  She has published on comparative analyses of aging relating telomere length […]

Read More…


Hannele Ruohola-Baker

Hannele Ruohola-Baker

Titles

Professor of Biochemistry
Adjunct Professor of Biology
Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

, ,

Roles

,

Adult stem cell aging Dr. Ruohola-Baker’s laboratory studies the molecules and cellular properties that are required for stem cell states and their differentiation capacity. During the recent years the laboratory has shown that microRNAs and the HIF pathway play key roles in regulating adult and embryonic stem cell self-renewal in model organisms as well as […]

Read More…


Shabnam Salimi

Shabnam Salimi

Titles

Acting Instructor

Departments

Roles

Shabnam Salimi is a multidisciplinary scientist studying the mechanism of health span and lifespan. She uses clinical and laboratory tools to define health and multimorbidity as the rate of aging and functional decline and response to stress. Her works evolved around determining clinically and biologically meaningful algorithms that measure the rate of aging, “omics” that track healthspan […]

Read More…


Devin Schweppe

Devin Schweppe

Titles

Assistant Professor

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Schweppe’s research interests focus on the implementation of millisecond informatics to enable intelligent data acquisition strategies. His research group applies these technologies to quantify proteins as a readout for diverse cell states with broad interests spanning microbial protein interactions, small-molecule binding events, pre-clinical proteomics, and profiling primary tissue samples. Dr. Schweppe’s research group builds […]

Read More…


Georg Seelig

Georg Seelig

Titles

Professor

Departments

,

Roles

,

We are interested in understanding how biological organisms process information using complex biochemical networks and how such networks can be engineered to program cellular behavior. The focus of our research is the identification of systematic design rules for the de novo construction of biological control circuits. Our approach integrates the design of molecular circuitry in the test tube […]

Read More…


Andy Shih

Andy Shih

Titles

Associate Professor

Departments

, ,

Roles

,

Dr. Shih is an Associate Professor at Seattle Children’s Research Instituteand the University of Washington. The research performed by his teamhas led to new discoveries related to the consequence of small-scalestroke, mechanisms of neurovascular coupling, and regulation of bloodflow through brain capillaries by pericytes. His research seeks to obtain aclear understanding the basic biology underlying […]

Read More…


Aakanksha Singhvi

Aakanksha Singhvi

Titles

Assistant Professor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Affiliate Assistant Professor, Dept. Biological Structure, UW School of Medicine

Departments

,

Roles

,

Dr. Singhvi’s lab investigates the role of glia in neural function, aging and disease. Our nervous system has two major cell types, glia and neurons, in about equal numbers. Glia communicate with neurons to modulate neuron shape and function, and thereby neural circuit activity and animal behaviors. To define the molecular basis of neural aging, […]

Read More…


Mariya Sweetwyne

Mariya Sweetwyne

Titles

Assistant Professor

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Mariya Sweetwyne (she/her) is a Cell Biologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (DLMP) in the UW School of Medicine. She earned a B.S. in Zoology and a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Washington, followed by a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University […]

Read More…


Rong Tian

Rong Tian

Titles

Professor of Bioengineering
Professor of Anesthesiology
Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry
Director, Mitochondria and Metabolism Center

Departments

Roles

,

Cardiac metabolism and mitochondrial energetics The Tian Lab studies cell metabolism and mitochondrial function in living systems. Our goal is to improve cellular resistance to environmental stresses and diseases through engineering metabolism. […]

Read More…


Paul Valdmanis

Paul Valdmanis

Titles

Associate Professor, Medical Genetics
Adjunct Associate Professor, Genome Sciences
Adjunct Associate Professor, Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

, ,

Roles

,

Age-associated changes in synaptic non-coding RNAs Dr. Valdmanis joined the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor in 2017. His lab studies genetic risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and gene therapy methods for therapeutic intervention. Through a series of studies focusing on long-read sequencing of the genome […]

Read More…


Judit Villen

Judit Villen

Titles

Associate Professor of Genome Sciences

Departments

Roles

, , , ,

Dr. Villen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Genome Sciences. She earned her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona. During her postdoc at Harvard Medical School she was involved in several technology developments that enabled the robust characterization of thousands of phosphorylation sites: from biochemical methods to mass spectrometry acquisition strategies […]

Read More…


Oscar Vivas

Oscar Vivas

Titles

Research Assistant Professor

Departments

Roles

,

BiographyOscar Vivas, Ph.D., is a Junior Faculty in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington. Dr. Vivas is interested in understanding how aging alters the autonomic nervous system. Why the autonomic nervous system? As we age, we perceive a decline in our ability to maintain constant internal conditions (homeostasis) at rest […]

Read More…


Z Yan Wang

Z Yan Wang

Titles

Assistant Professor

Departments

,

Roles

,

Yan is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Biology at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is a neuroscientist interested in the evolutionary and social dimensions of senescence. She uses emerging invertebrate model systems, such as the bee and the octopus, to investigate how the nervous system organizes, encodes, and mediates end-of-life transitions and death. […]

Read More…


Allison Webel

Allison Webel

Titles

Interim Robert G. and Jean A. Reid Executive Dean, UW School of Nursing
Aljoya Endowed Professor in Aging
Associate Editor, Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
Associate Editor, Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Webel’s clinical research laboratory focuses on generating high-quality evidence to help people with HIV live and age well, with an emphasis on diet and exercise.  She has spoken and published widely in this area with over 150 manuscripts on HIV and aging, behavioral science, and global health. Her work has been funded by the […]

Read More…


Andrea Wills

Andrea Wills

Titles

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry

Departments

Roles

,

Dr. Wills joined the UW Biochemistry faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2015.  Her research is focused on understanding the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of regeneration using the diploid frog Xenopus tropicalis as a model organism.  Loss of regenerative capacity is a fundamental aspect of aging biology.  The Wills lab uses high-throughput sequencing approaches (RNA-Seq, ChIP-Seq, ATAC-Seq) […]

Read More…


Jessica Young

Jessica Young

Titles

Assistant Professor of Lab Medicine and Pathology

Departments

Roles

, , , , , , ,

Dr. Young joined the UW faculty in 2016 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology.  Her research goal is to understand the molecular and biochemical mechanisms underlying age-related disorders, with a particular focus on neurodegenerative disorders.  She has developed human stem cell models to further this line of research, as […]

Read More…