Media contact: Micah Hardge, micahxh@uab.edu
Steve Austad, Ph.D.
Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research, Department of Biology
Areas of expertise:
- The Biology of Aging
- Evolution
- Ecology of Infectious Diseases
- Scientific Communication
- Longevity of Life
Austad, a leader in aging research, explains fundamental molecular mechanisms that control aging in many life forms, including humans. His research interests lend expertise to the biology of aging, evolution, ecology of infectious diseases, scientific communication and longevity of life. The long-term goal of his research is to develop treatments to slow the aging process, thus keeping people fit and healthy longer.
Austad has a 16-year old bet that someone born before 2001 will reach the age of 150. The stakes could net hundreds of millions of dollars to the winner's descendants in 2150.
Media appearances:
- The Russian conspiracy theory against the world's oldest women, Jeanne Calment, Stuff
- Scientists dodge FDA to offer a $1 million anti-aging treatment in Colombia, Medium
- Eric Zorn: A 150-year-old human? Neither side is folding the Great Longevity Wager, Scribd
- Why America’s inequality is a threat to living longer, Forbes
- Flies, clocks and the Nobel Prize, Huffington Post
- Why a drug for aging would challenge Washington, Politico
- Scientists up stakes in bet on whether humans live to 150, Nature
- Why animals get gray hair, too, National Geographic
- What can dogs teach us about aging well? Next Avenue
- 15 signs your body is aging faster than you are, Reader's Digest
- Has the fountain of youth been discovered?, Boston Magazine