Douglas E. Vaughan, MD; Irving S. Cutter Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine; Director, Potoscnak Longevity Institute

Dr. Vaughan is chairman of the Department of Medicine and the Irving S. Cutter Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and has been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

As a principal clinical investigator, Dr. Vaughan spans the bench to the bedside in his work. His efforts and findings in vascular biology include basic investigations into the regulation of gene expression, genetic models of disease, mechanistic studies in humans, and clinical trials. His primary research interests are in the mammalian plasminogen activator system and the role this system plays in cardiovascular disease and physiological aging.

In 2018, Dr. Vaughan led a study that reported the first genetic variation that appears to protect against multiple aspects of biological aging in humans in an extended kindred of Old Order Amish living in the vicinity of Berne, Indiana.

Dr. Vaughan now leads the recently launched Potoscnak Longevity Institute, bringing together scientists and experts across many disciplines to study those populations that seem resistant to negative consequences of aging with the goal of discovering what makes them unique. With a deeper understanding of how aging works, the institute aims to expand the health span for all people with future therapies and lifestyle interventions.

Dr. Frank J. Palella

Dr. Frank Palella is the Potocsnak Family Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Palella is also the Director of the newly inaugurated HIV and Aging Center within the Potocsnak Family Longevity at Institute Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and serves as Associate Director of the overall Institute. Dr. Palella has been involved in HIV research and clinical care for over 25 years and has occupied leadership roles in several large prospective ongoing observational research cohorts of a person living with or at risk for HIV infection. These include the CDC-sponsored HIV Outpatient Study (HOPS), for which he has served as principal investigator since 1994, and the NIH-sponsored study ACTG 5322 (HAILO Study), which is a longitudinal observational study of inflammation, immune activation, and clinical events among aging persons with HIV infection, for which he has served as co-chair since its inception. As an investigator for the NIH-funded Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) over the past 25+ years, he has served in multiple leadership roles. In recent years, his research activities have been increasingly focused on aging- related chronic co-morbidities in persons with treated HIV infection, particularly cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, and bone disease, as well as functional status, including frailty and disability. Of note, Dr. Palella was the lead author the 1998 landmark New England Journal of Medicine article entitled, “Declining morbidity and mortality in an ambulatory HIV-infected population,” which was the 1st report to document the dramatic clinical benefits of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART); this report remains the most widely-cited publication of the AIDS era. To date, he has authored over 300 articles in peer-reviewed biomedical publications. He remains an active clinician, caring for approximately 500 persons living with HIV.

Emily J Rogalski, PhD

Dr. Emily Rogalski a clinical and cognitive neuroscientist, the Ann Adelmann Perkins and John S. Perkins Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention, and Associate Director of the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She serves as Neuroimaging Biomarker Core Leader of Northwestern’s NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) and Co-Chair for the Imaging Steering Committee for the national ADRC Network. Her research falls under the broad umbrella of aging and dementia. Using a multimodal approach, she focuses her investigations on two aging perspectives: primary progressive aphasia (PPA) in which neurodegenerative disease invades the language network and SuperAging in which individuals are seemingly resistant to the deleterious changes in memory associated with “normal” or more typical cognitive aging. Her PPA research focuses on characterizing the clinical and anatomical features of PPA, ascertaining drivers of disease progression, identifying risk factors, and refining our understanding of language network organization. She has pioneered a line of nonpharmacologic intervention research called Communication Bridge, whic is concentrated on maximizing care and quality of life for individuals living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Dr. Rogalski operationalized the SuperAging phenotype and helped to establish their unique biologic, molecular, genetic, and psychosocial features. The SuperAging Research Initiative was recently expanded as a multisite study across the U.S. and Canada through a $20M grant Dr. Rogalski and colleagues received from the National Institute on Aging and the McKnight Brain Research Foundation. The study of SuperAgers holds promise for identifying protective factors for avoiding Alzheimer’s disease, optimizing health span, and reducing stigma and negative expectations associated with aging.

Dr. Sadiya S Khan, MD, MSc

Sadiya S. Khan, MD, MSc is an assistant professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Khan’s clinical expertise and research focus is on the epidemiology, prevention, and genetics of heart failure with an emphasis on sex-specific risk factors such as adverse pregnancy outcomes. Dr. Khan’s research spans the research spectrum from preclinical basic research, population-based studies, and clinical trials. She is committed to improving cardiovascular health across the life course, beginning in utero, and across generations. Her research efforts are supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. Dr. Khan has published >190 peer-reviewed scientific research publications in leading medical journals and her work has been cited over 9700 times (Scopus, May 2022). She is an Associate Editor at JAMA Cardiology and serves as the Vice-Chair of the American Heart Association Epidemiology Publications Committee.