Sean Curran is an American gerontologist who is Professor of Gerontology and Vice Dean at the

USC Davis School of Gerontology The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is one of the seventeen academic divisions of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, focusing in undergraduate and graduate programs in gerontology, History Founded in 1975, the Leona ...

with joint appointments in Molecular and Computational Biology (USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences). He also serves as the Dean of Faculty and Research. His expertise is the

molecular genetics Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...

of healthspan and

longevity The word " longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography. However, the term ''longevity'' is sometimes meant to refer only to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas ''life expectancy'' is always d ...

with an emphasis on biology, genetics, nutrition, and diets.

Education

Curran earned his B.S. from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

in 1999, his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2004 and completed

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

training at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools ...

and

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United State ...

from 2004-2010.

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. 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 -2 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 *2020 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research, American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR)

Selected publications

* * *

References

*Pang, S., et al., SKN-1 and Nrf2 couples proline catabolism with lipid metabolism during nutrient deprivation. Nat Commun, 2014. 5: p. 5048. *https://www.geron.org/press-room/press-releases/2014-press-releases/371-curran-to-receive-gsa-s-2014-nathan-shock-new-investigator-award *https://www.geron.org/membership/awards/awardees?showall=1 {{DEFAULTSORT:Curran, Sean Living people American gerontologists University of Southern California faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni Year of birth missing (living people)