Geroscientist Nir Barzilai, M.D. has shifted the way aging and diseases are both viewed and treated. Barzilai is both Professor of Medicine and Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Director of the Institute for Aging Research and BIO VITAL, the Center for Validation of Interventions Targeting Aging and Longevity. By focusing on the possible prevention of chronic diseases, from cancer to Alzheimer’s, Barzilai is focused on not just slowing down aging, but treating aging itself as a “modifiable disease.”
“The promise that we all can live healthier for longer as we grow older and decrease the pain of disease and illness is really what motivates me and my inspiring colleagues in the field,” he says.
Barzilai’s work in this area is extensive. He has published more than 360 papers, including a 2024 research article with the European Society of Medicine that identifies several current FDA-approved drugs that could be “repurposed” for long-term clinical trials. These include GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as semaglutides, and also Metformin. The latter is a drug that has long “demonstrated protective effects against several age-related diseases in humans,” Barzilai and his co-authors wrote in a 2016 essay in “Cell Metabolism.”
Through his studies on centenarians, people who live past 100, he’s helped find that they don’t just live longer — they’re also healthier. More critically, they’re “sick weeks at the end of their life as opposed to years at the end of their life,” he says. This finding has given rise to the concept of the longevity dividend: people who live healthily in their later years bring a financial value to the economy, while potentially delaying costly medical interventions.
Barzilai is the co-founder and President of the Academy for Health & Lifespan Research, where he co-leads several programs, including the Super Agers Initiative. He sits on the Board of Directors for the American Federation for Aging Research, and is on the Executive Committee of both the Longevity Biotech Association and the Council of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society. The author of the 2020 book, “Age Later: Health Span, Life Span and the New Science of Longevity,” Barzilai has won numerous honors including the IPSEN Longevity Award and the Irving S. Wright Award. He is also a Fellow of the Association of American Physicians and the New York Academy of Medicine.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Barzilai to our DOC Faculty. We look forward to hearing more from him and his work at DOC 2026.