Luigi Ferrucci is a geriatrician and an epidemiologist who researches the causal pathways leading to progressive physical and cognitive decline in older persons. In September 2002, he became the Chief of the Longitudinal Studies Section at NIA and the Director of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging. He received a Medical Degree and Board Certification in 1980, a Board Certification in Geriatrics in 1982, and a Ph.D. in Biology and Pathophysiology of Aging in 1998 at the University of Florence, Italy. Between 1985 and 2002 he was Chief of Geriatric Rehabilitation at the Department of Geriatric Medicine and Director of the Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology at the Italian National Institute of Aging. During the same period, he collaborated with the NIA Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry where he spent several periods as a Visiting Scientist at NIH. He has made major contributions to the design of many epidemiological studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe, including the AKEA study of Centenarians in Sardinia and the Women's Health and Aging Study. He was also the Principal Investigator of the InCHIANTI study. In 2002, he refined the design of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging to focus on the Geroscience Hypothesis. He has made major contributions to the literature and is one of the most cited scientists in the field of aging. He has been Scientific Director at NIA since May 2011.
Alice S. Ryan is a Professor at the Department of Medicine,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, and an Associate Director for
Translational Sciences at the Center for Research on Aging. Alice S. Ryan received
a BA in Sociology/Biology at the University of Arizona, obtained the MS in Exercise
Physiology at Pennsylvania State University, and earned a Ph.D. in Exercise
Physiology at the University of Maryland. Alice S. Ryan was a Post-doctoral
Fellow in Gerontology and Metabolism at the University of Maryland School of
Medicine. A main focus of Alice S. Ryan’s research is the study of obesity,
body fat distribution, intramuscular fat and their role in insulin resistance
with emphasis on the effects of weight loss and exercise training on muscle and
glucose metabolism in sedentary, overweight individuals. The basic research
includes the study of mechanisms by which diet and exercise interventions
(aerobic and resistive training) affect skeletal muscle and adipose tissue
metabolism, insulin signaling and gene expression in muscle, and in vivo
insulin action in sedentary older individuals.
