PROGRAM - KEYNOTES

Peggy Cawthon

Maintaining Mobility in Old Age

Dr. Cawthon is currently Senior Scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute and Associate Adjunct Professor at UCSF. Dr. Cawthon’s current research interests include maintenance of mobility in old age; sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss); frailty; the decline of physical function with age; and osteoporosis, particularly in older men.
She has lead the recent Sarcopenia Definitions and Outcomes Consortium effort to develop an updated, evidenced based definition of sarcopenia.
She has also lead the first large scale study of the D3Cr-dilution based assessment of muscle mass, a project that established that strong associations exist between low D3Cr muscle mass and weakness, poor physical performance, fractures, mortality and disability in older men.

Shalender Bhasin

Sirtuin-NAD Activators in COVID-19 Infection

Dr. Shalender Bhasin, MD, serves as the Director of the Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, and the Director of the Research Program in Men’s Health: Aging and Metabolism, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, MA. He is an internationally recognized expert in randomized trials of function-promoting therapies for the prevention and treatment of functional limitations and disability associated with aging and chronic illness, and androgen biology.
As a translational scientist, he leads a large interdisciplinary research program in function promoting therapies for functional limitations and disability in older adults.
His expertise in these content areas is reflected in over 225 high quality peer-reviewed manuscripts, 120 book chapters and reviews, two books, and over 600 abstracts. Dr. Bhasin has conducted numerous NIH-funded complex randomized trials of the effects of exercise, nutritional, and pharmacological interventions in older adults with mobility limitation, falls, chronic obstructive lung disease, HIV-infection, and end stage renal disease. He chaired the Endocrine Society’s Expert Panel for the development of Guidelines for Testosterone Therapy.
He serves as the Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism Subspecialty Board’s Examination Writing Committee.
He is a translational researcher, supported by several NIH-funded grants for over 25 years, and has been the recipient of numerous teaching and research awards.

Kenneth Rockwood

COVID-19, dementia, and frailty: a fearful symmetry?

Kenneth Rockwood, MD, FRCPC, FRCP, is Professor of Medicine (Geriatric Medicine & Neurology) and the Kathryn Allen Weldon Professor of Alzheimer Research at Dalhousie University. A leading authority on frailty, he has key roles on numerous studies in Canada and elsewhere. Ken received his MD from Memorial University in St. John’s, NL, completed training in Internal Medicine at the University of Alberta, and in Geriatric Medicine from Dalhousie University. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration (Queen’s University, Ontario).
He serves on the Lancet Commission on Dementia, as an inaugural member of Canada’s National Council on Dementia, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Chinese National Center for Gerontology. He is the Associate Director of the Canadian Collaboration on Neurodegeneration in Aging.
Ken has published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and ten books, including the eighth edition of Brocklehurst’s Textbook of Geriatric Medicine & Gerontology.
In 2016 he received the China Friendship Award, that country’s highest honour for foreigners. Since 2017, facilitating his work with the National Health Service of England and Wales, he has held an appointment as Honorary Professor of Population Science and Experimental Medicine, University College London. Ken also founded and serves as the President and Chief Science Officer of DGI Clinical Inc., a spin-off company that focuses on individualized outcome measurement and advanced data analytics in several complex disease states.

Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari

Determinants of Healthy Aging - what can we learn from DO-HEALTH?

Prof. Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari, MD, DrPH, trained in Geriatric Medicine, Rheumatology and Rehabilitation in Switzerland and the US, was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School in Boston from 2000 to 2005, and received a Doctor of Public Health degree from the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in 2008.
After her return from the US, she built the Research Centre on Aging and Mobility at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and since 2013 holds the Chair of the Department and Network of Aging Medicine and Aging Research at the University of Zurich, the University Hospital in Zurich and the City Hospitals Waid & Triemli in Zurich.
Prof. Bischoff-Ferrari coordinates the European DO-HEALTH Longevity Trial and Biobank within a network of European and US researchers.
The goal of this collaborative research effort is to identify effective public health solutions and early risk profils to slow the aging process and thereby reduce the risk of frailty and age-related chronic diseases, allowing more adults to stay active and healthy longer.