Sanjay Asthana, MD
Director
The Training Grant Program Director is Sanjay Asthana, MD, Professor in the UW Department of Medicine. Dr. Asthana is the head of the Department of Medicine Section of Geriatrics and Gerontology and Director of the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the Middleton VA Hospital. He also serves as the Director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and is the Associate Dean for Gerontology at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. His research is in the area of estrogen, cognition and Alzheimer’s Disease.
Dr. Asthana received his medical degree at the University College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi in New Delhi, India and completed his residency training in internal medicine at the University of Saskatchewan School of Medicine in Saskatoon, Canada. He obtained his Geriatric Fellowship training at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed additional Senior Staff Fellowship in Alzheimer’s disease research at the Laboratory of Neurosciences of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. The primary focus of Dr. Asthana’s research is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and he is internationally recognized for his work on estrogen and related hormones for the treatment of AD. His research program is supported by several peer-reviewed grants from the NIH, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and various philanthropic foundations and the pharmaceutical industry.
Rozalyn Anderson, PhD
Co-Director
The Training Grant Associate Director is Rozalyn Anderson, PhD, Professor in the UW Department of Medicine. Dr. Anderson obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and received a PhD in Biochemistry from University College Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Anderson began investigating the biology of aging in 2000 as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, Boston MA. She extended her studies working at the University of Wisconsin Institute on Aging as a Biology of Aging T32 scholar, and at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center as an Assistant Scientist, eventually joining the UW SMPH Department of Medicine faculty in 2010. She is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Metabolism of Aging program at the SMPH.
From Dr. Anderson: As improvements in standard of living and advances in medicine have resulted in greater life expectancy, the relative proportion of elderly has continued to increase across the globe. The primary goal of aging research is to gain a better understanding of the series of events that lead to increased frailty and disease vulnerability with age. The direct study of human aging is an active area of research; however, mechanistic studies in laboratory animals allow us to gain insights into the underlying biology of age-related disease vulnerability. The overarching goal of this NIH/NIA T32 training grant is to nurture the careers of future Biology of Aging research leaders. Dr. Asthana and I are committed to provide the best possible training environment in terms of research, scientific and intellectual growth, and career development.