Who's Who
In addition to the permanent staff below, the SENS Foundation Research Center includes a varying number of short-term interns amongst its staff.
Director of Research Operations
Tanya has been involved with non-profit research and laboratory management for nearly twenty years. With a long-standing interest in extending a healthy lifespan, she has worked toward the development of both nanotechnology and cryonics, most recently serving as the CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation. She is experienced in all facets of business management for a small, non-profit research company, including financial planning and execution, strategic planning, and human resource management. Tanya has extensive public speaking experience that includes interactions with national media, legal environments, and both technical and general audiences. Her involvement in the political process once countered the passage of inappropriate industry regulation by the Arizona State Legislature.
Researcher
Max Peto currently leads the OncoSENS project on ALT at the SENSF Research Center, which began on Feb 1st, 2012. Max started his work at the SENSF as a researcher at the SENSF-RC in Mountain View, CA, in June 2010, where he worked on the expression and purification of LysoSENS enzymes for atherosclerosis and age-related macular degeneration. Prior to working directly with the SENSF (2008-2010) he studied undergraduate biochemistry at the University of Toledo to become trained in biological research so he can investigate and advance the SENS research agenda. He's highly excited to work directly on advancing the SENS research agenda after 4 years of studying biology and biochemistry both formally and independently for this purpose. The exciting promise of SENS interventions is very motivating and inspiring to Max. Directed effort toward addressing the *causes* of age-related diseases is the only way to truly cure them. This is in contrast to slowing their appearance or treating the symptoms as many current medical interventions focus on. As such, he intends to perform or otherwise support SENS or SENS-related research for many years, as he thinks the enormous positive potential of SENS requires persistent effort by many to be realized. Other topics of interest to Max are studies biochemistry, life-extension, metabolism, nutrition, exercise physiology, economics, efficiency, psychology, cryonics, and creativity. Max also holds an MBA with a focus in Management and International Business, and was previously an accountant and college business and accounting professor.
Academic Coordinator
Daniel received his B.A. in Biological Sciences from Rice University in May 2009, and began to do volunteer research with SENS Foundation shortly afterward, when the SENSF Research Center was located in Tempe, Arizona. He later worked on the LysoSENS and MitoSENS projects at the SENSF-RC in Mountain View, California. Presently, he is working as the Academic Coordinator of the SENS Foundation Academic Initiative.
Hardware Engineer / Content Editor
Anne Corwin earned her Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 2002. Since then she has worked in industry as an EE specializing in Electromagnetic Compatibility hardware issues, provided editorial and other volunteer support to SENS Foundation, and written for her blog "Existence is Wonderful" on subjects ranging from naked mole-rat longevity to cat cognition to do-it-yourself carpentry. She is currently employed at the SENS Foundation Research Center in a dual hardware-engineer / content-editor role.
LysoSENS Team Lead
I am a cell biologist with an interest in how lysosomes contribute to normal cellular function as well as the pathogenesis of aging. Here at LysoSENS I have taken on a very challenging project aimed towards clearing A2E, a compound that progressively accumulates in the lysosomes of retinal pigment epithelial cells and contributes to the onset of age related macular degeneration. At Stanford University in Daria Mochly-Rosen's lab I am optimizing a cell-based model for ischemia-reperfusion injury, a type of injury that occurs in cardiomyocytes during myocardial infarction. I am using this model to study how protein kinase c contributes to cell death in cardiomyocytes. In my postdoctoral studies at St Jude Children's Research Hospital, in Sandra d'Azzo's lab, I worked on understanding why, in some instances, lysosomes dock at the plasma membrane and release their contents extracellularly. I did my PhD training in Adelaide, South Australia, working on the mutations that cause lysosomal storage disease.
Executive Assistant
Works as Executive Assistant to Michael Kope and Tanya Jones. She is interested and invested in personalized health, nutrition, and exercise. Her background is in the biological sciences, but she also excels in organization and communications.
Researcher at SENS Foundation Research Center
Gayathri joined the SENS Foundation Research Center in March 2011 and works towards advancing the MitoSENS project. She has a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology and Immunology from Temple University, Philadelphia and completed her postdoctoral training at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and Stanford University, California. The major focus of her doctoral and post-doctoral research work was on elucidation of signaling pathways relevant to cell growth and cancer development in an effort to identify causative factors and potential therapeutic modalities to treat cancer. She has published her work in well-reputed, peer-reviewed international journals. At SENS RC, her research efforts are focused on showing ‘allotopic’ expression of mitochondrial proteins involved in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), their incorporation in the relevant OXPHOS complexes and OXPHOS function rescue studies using patient cell lines. She is enthusiastic about the broad, translational impact of the research programs supported by SENS foundation and hopes to make positive contributions towards the development of novel, targeted, regenerative therapies for age-related disease pathologies including cancer.
Research Scientist at the SENS RC
Dr. Matthew O'Connor was awarded his Master's degree at Northwestern Medical in 1999 for his work studying behavioral neuroscience in aged rodents. In 2005, at Baylor College of Medicine he received a PhD in Biochemistry for his work on proteins that regulate human telomeres. Postdoctoral research includes work at UC Berkeley on muscle stem cells and aging. In 2010, Dr. O'Connor joined the SENS Foundation and heads up the MitoSENS project at the research center in Mountain View, California. His research is focused on "allotopic expression" of mitochondrial genes where his team is engineering mitochondrial genes to be expressed from the nucleus and targeted to the mitochondia. Dr. O'Connor is passionate about performing basic research to combat the diseases and disabilities of aging.