Sean Curran (scientist)


Sean Curran is an associate professor in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology with joint appointments in Molecular and Computational Biology and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He studies molecular genetics of exceptional longevity.

Research

Curran and his co-author Gary Ruvkun discovered approximately 60 highly conserved genes that are essential for development but can significantly increase lifespan when inactivated in adulthood.
Dr. Curran’s research group has established the existence of gene-diet pairs that predict survival and aging success. The function of these genes is essential on some diets but dispensable on others . There are potentially hundreds, if not thousands of these gene-diet pairs, which when combined, may explain the variance in aging rates across individuals.

Awards

2014 Nathan Shock Award – Gerontological Society of America
2015 Ewald Busse Award – Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development

Biography

He earned his B.S. from UCLA in 1999, his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2004 and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital from 2004-2010.

Selected publications

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