AREAS OF SPECIALTY:
Biomarkers of Aging
Longevity & Healthspan
Epigenetics
“Aging research is changing our lives.”
Eric Verdin, M.D., Ph.D.
President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging
Originally from Belgium, Dr. Verdin earned his MD from the University of Liege, in Belgium. He trained at Harvard Medical School and has held faculty positions at the University of Brussels in Belgium, the NIH in Maryland, and the Picower Institute for Medical Research in New York.
Dr. Verdin studies the molecular virology of HIV and novel approaches to eradicate HIV infection. Dr. Verdin’s laboratory also focuses on a family of proteins—called histone deacetylases—and their role in the aging process and the immune system. He joined the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology in 1997 and became the associate director in 2004. In November 2016, Eric accepted the position as the President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
Dr. Verdin was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. Dr. Verdin serves on the National Scientific Advisory Council of the American Federation for Aging Research and on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Drug Abuse at NIH.
FOCUS AREAS
Aging and the Immune System. The Verdin lab studies the relationship between aging and the immune system. Aging is associated with defects in the adaptive immune system and with chronic inflammation. Verdin studies how immune aging is regulated by nutrition.
Changes in the relative abundance of key cellular metabolites such as NAD+, acetylcoenzyme A, and the ketone body beta-hydroxybutyrate fluctuate under different nutritional conditions (obesity, calorie restriction, fasting, time-restricted feeding, ketogenic diet) and how this fluctuation influences immune responses.
Verdin is working on key enzymes regulated by these metabolites, such as sirtuins (NAD+), histone acetyltransferases (acetylcoenzyme A), and histone deacetylases (HDACs).
Awards and Honors
For his aging research, Dr. Verdin was recognized with the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging and a senior scholarship from the Ellison Medical Foundation. His work on HIV was recognized by an Avant-Garde Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Verdin has served as reviewer on study sections for the NIH, as the organizer of international meetings and as the editor of several books and reviews. He has published more than 200 international papers and is an inventor on 14 published patents.
aging critical publications
SIRT5 Regulates the Mitochondrial Lysine Succinylome and Metabolic Networks Matthew J. Rardin, Wenjuan He, Yuya Nishida, Eric S. Goetzman, Bradford W. Gibson, Eric Verdin
HIV Latency Is Established Directly and Early in Both Resting and Activated Primary CD4 T Cells, Leonard Chavez, Vincenzo Calvanese, Eric Verdin 214. Battivelli E, Dahabieh MS, Abdel-Mohsen M, Svensson JP, Tojal Da Silva I, Cohn LB, Gramatica A, Deeks S, Greene WC, Pillai SK, Verdin E.
Distinct chromatin functional states correlate with HIV latency reactivation in infected primary CD4+ T cells. Elife.