AREAS OF SPECIALTY:
Genome instability and aging
primary mechanisms underlying aging
mechanisms underlying the limits to species-specific life span
Jan Vijg , PhD
Dr. Jan Vijg is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York since July, 2008. He received his PhD from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, in 1987. After working at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and the biotech company, Ingeny B.V. he moved to the US as an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in 1993. From 1999 to 2005 Dr. Vijg was a Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He worked at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, CA, until 2008. With his research team he was the first to develop transgenic mouse models for studying somatic mutations in relation to aging (in 1989). Since 2007 he has developed and applied single-cell methods for studying somatic mutations and epimutations in relation to aging. Dr. Vijg’s research has been continuously funded by the US National Institutes of Health since 1993. Dr. Vijg has published well over 300 scientific articles and two books: Aging of the Genome: The Dual Role of DNA in Life and Death (Oxford University Press, 2007) and The American Technological Challenge: Stagnation and Decline in the 21st Century (Algora Publishing New York, 2011).