Scientific
Lecture "Biodemography of human longevity"
Presentation Description:
This presentation will discuss recent
biodemographic studies on human longevity. Topics include: inheritance
of human longevity, impact of maternal and paternal ages at person's
conception on person life span, biological explanations why
parental-age effects may be important, current biological studies on
the effects of month-of-birth on person's characteristics, including
person's life span. The recent controversy on the alleged
infertility of long-living persons and problem of limits to human
lifespan will also be discussed.
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"Biodemography
of human
longevity"
Goals and Objectives of the
Presentation:
- To
discuss an existing paradox of small narrow-sense heritability of human
lifespan vs strong familial clustering of exceptional longevity
- To show the familial effects on longevity
- To explain the
non-linear, threshold pattern of real offspring-on-parent lifespan
dependencies
- To demonstrate the
importance of early-life conditions for later-life outcomes
- To discuss the relationship between
infertility and longevity
Speaker's Biographical Sketch:
Natalia S. Gavrilova,
M.S., Ph.D.
Research Associate, Center on Aging, NORC and The University of
Chicago
Natalia S. Gavrilova, Ph.D. is one of the world's leading experts in
longevity studies, and a co-author of a famous scientific book "The Biology of Life Span"
(1991), listed in the Encyclopedia
Britannica as a recommended reference. She has Ph.D in
anthropology and demography and M.Sc. in chemistry, both from the
Moscow State University, Russia. Recently Natalia Gavrilova also got an
additional M. Sc. in computer science from the University of Chicago
(in 2003).
Dr. Gavrilova was a Principal Investigator of Research Project
"Biodemographic aspects of longevity inheritance in humans" supported
by the National Institute on Aging, USA. She also participated in
the NASA project "Radiation Risk Analysis: Model Issues and
Interspecies Extrapolation." Currently Natalia Gavrilova is
a Principal Investigator of Research Project on Exceptional Human
Longevity supported by the Society of Actuaries.
Dr. Natalia Gavrilova is an author of nearly a hundred of scientific
publications and an expert (referee) for 14 scientific journals on
aging and longevity studies including Journal of Anti-Aging
Medicine, Journal of Gerontology, Experimental Gerontology, Mechanisms
of Ageing and Development, Biogerontology, and Journal of
Theoretical Biology.
Dr. Gavrilova has been an invited speaker at several conferences
including the International Conference on Longevity (Sydney, Australia,
2004). She gives lectures at scientific conferences worldwide.
Her current research interests include application of advanced computer
technologies to the analyses of genealogical data for longevity
studies. Dr. Gavrilova has developed a new scientific and
educational website on human longevity studies "Longevity Science" http://longevity-science.org/.
Her scientific website contains now over a hundred of scientific
documents relevant to longevity studies. It is receiving now about 500
visits per day from many prestigious organizations including the
Library of Congress, the National Institutes of Health, NIH, USA, and
from the Royal Society - the UK National Academy of Science. Her
website is now rated as the top # 1 website on 'human
longevity' topic in such major search engines as Google, Yahoo!,
Alltheweb, etc., when searching for 'human longevity' term.
Dr. Natalia Gavrilova is a member of the Gerontological Society of
America, International Union for the Scientific Study of Population,
and Population Association of America.
Her full CV is available at:
http://longevity-science.org/CV-gavrilova.htm
Expertise profile:
http://myprofile.cos.com/gavrilova
NIH Biosketch:
http://longevity-science.org/NIH-Biosketch-Gavrilova.doc