Vitality Magazine Winter 2023-2024

USC LEONARD DAVIS SCHOOL OF GERONTOLOGY

VOL. 15 A Magazine for All Ages

Marilou and Mark Hamill share their thoughts on aging well and why “there’s no greater gift than education.”

WINTER 2023-2024

Role Models

DEAN’S MESSAGE Dear USC Leonard Davis School community,

Fight On!

Pinchas Cohen MD Dean, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Photo: Stephanie Kleinman

“In a world that is rapidly aging, our role as the premier institution for aging expertise is more important than ever.”

I am extremely proud of the exciting growth and innovation that has taken place at the USC Leonard Davis School this year.

Recently, we welcomed several new faculty colleagues to our school community, further enriching our world-class expertise. We have also continued to provide new opportunities for our students, having launched the nation’s first PhD in Geroscience, a first-of-its-kind Master of Science in Applied Technology and Aging, and a new minor in Geroscience.

In addition to expanding our faculty and developing new educational offerings, we’ve created opportunities for the wider community to discuss the biggest issues in our field.

Events such as the Aging Is Now/Aging Is the Future Entrepreneurship Symposium and the Geroscience Los Angeles Meeting (GLAM) have connected students and scientists with practitioners, entrepreneurs and other experts for incredible cross-disciplinary conversations and collaboration.

In a world that is rapidly aging, our role as the premier institution for aging expertise is more important than ever. As the USC Leonard Davis School develops the next generation of practitioners, researchers, designers, inventors and business leaders, we embrace the responsibility of teaching future professionals how to anticipate and meet the needs of the growing population of older adults — and, in turn, improve the lives of people of all ages.

VITALITY MAGAZINE — Chief Communications Officer Orli Belman Editor in Chief Beth Newcomb Design Natalie Avunjian Copy Editor Elizabeth Slocum Contributors Alexander Bernard Andrew Faught Katharine Gammon Christian Hetrick Leigh Hopper Michelle McCarthy Candace Pearson Nina Raffio Constance Sommer Cover Photography Christina Gandolfo

USC LEONARD DAVIS SCHOOL OF GERONTOLOGY — Dean Pinchas Cohen Vice Dean Sean Curran Senior Associate Dean Maria L. Henke Senior Associate Dean for Advancement David Eshaghpour Associate Dean of Research, Associate Dean of International Programs and Global Initiatives Jennifer Ailshire Associate Dean of Education John Walsh Assistant Dean of Research Christian Pike Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Donna Benton Assistant Dean of Academic Initiatives Mireille Jacobson Senior Business Officer Lali Acuna Senior Human Resources Business Partner Wendy Snaer

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INSIDE

FEATURED —

Postcard An intro to aging in South Korea

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Role Models Marilou and Mark Hamill discuss family, aging well and the gift of education

Findings New studies on metabolism, AI and vaccine reminders

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Vital Signs Breathing exercises to defend the brain

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Innovation The challenges and opportunities of the longevity economy

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Eat Well, Age Well How diet interacts with genetics and affects aging

Supporting the Future of the Field Scholars of the GEMSTEM program

A Caregiving Safety Net USC experts work to improve policy

New Heights Student climbs Half Dome with her grandfather, 93

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Support Jeung family gift supports biology of aging research

One Size Doesn’t Fit All How the sexes age differently

At Any Stage For Any Age Palliative care’s powerful impact

Passion, Hard Work & Determination Three PhD alumni share their stories

WINTER 2023-2024 | 1

AWARDS

SPOTLIGHT

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Bérénice Benayoun Rising Star Early Career Faculty Award, Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education

Jennifer Ailshire, associate professor of gerontology and sociology, was awarded the 2023 Provost’s Mentoring Award, which recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated outstanding mentorship to USC faculty, postdoctoral fellows and students.

Ailshire was honored for her commitment to promoting equity in research and her exemplary guidance and support for her mentees.

She received the award at the university’s 42nd Academic Honors Convocation on April 11, 2023.

Ailshire, who also serves as the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology’s associate dean of research and associate dean of international programs and global initiatives, was commended for her generosity toward the academic and professional success of others, modeling how to be a successful woman in academia, bringing equity into research and championing scholars from underrepresented groups.

In letters submitted in support of her nomination, current and former mentees credited her with creating an environment of inclusiveness. Specifically, they described her as someone who notices the uniqueness in her students, makes them feel visible and valued, and goes above and beyond to help them develop their strengths.

Among her many achievements as a researcher and mentor, Ailshire was instrumental in creating the Gerontology Enriching Medicine, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (GEMSTEM) program at USC, a first-of-its-kind undergraduate training, education and mentoring program that aims to diversify participation in aging and health disparities research.

Donna Benton Health Equity Award, University of California, Los Angeles Pinchas Cohen Distinguished Professor, University of Southern California Edward L. Schneider Clark Tibbitts Award, Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education Kathleen Wilber Donald P. Kent Award, Gerontological Society of America

QUOTABLE —

“If you are not just a little afraid, you are not striving hard enough; you are not reaching far enough; you are not developing to your full potential. So don’t be afraid to be a little afraid.”

— Shari Thorell, Chair of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Board of Councilors, during her Commencement address on May 12, 2023.

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Photos: Stephanie Kleinman, John Skalicky

NEWS BITES

GLOSSARY — Heart Rate Variability Changes in the amount of time between heartbeats — Cleveland Clinic POSTCARD —

Photo: Courtesy of Min-Kyoung Rhee

An Introduction to Aging in South Korea When it came time for USC Leonard Davis students to learn some of the latest pop music line dances, a group of older adults at a Seoul community center were their unexpected teachers.

“The students were having difficulty following the fancy moves,” said Min-Kyoung Rhee, an instructional assistant professor who led a study abroad course focused on aging in South Korea. “It was a nice ‘a-ha’ moment that allowed us to see older adults as proactive members of a society who can contribute to younger generations.”

Rhee and Program Manager Jeannie Wakamatsu took students from bustling Seoul to rural Andong to help them gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the world’s fastest-aging nation. Low fertility rates and longer life expectancies are projected to make South Korea the world’s oldest country by 2060, overtaking neighboring Japan.

Students met tech-savvy seniors aging in good health, visited a nursing home to get end-of-life insights, and heard from gerontology experts about their current projects. They also experienced local food and culture through several sightseeing excursions led by an energetic guide who was in her mid-70’s. Kelly Vuong, a Master of Science in Gerontology and Master of Social Work student, said she learned a valuable lesson just trying to keep up with her.

“She was able to walk faster than all of us,” she said. “As someone who lives in LA and hardly goes anywhere without a car, I definitely came home motivated to get more movement in my days.”

Andrew Kim, a health promotion and disease prevention major, said the trip inspired him to translate Korean insights into practical solutions in the United States.

“It has been instrumental in shaping my path towards a future in medical studies with a focus on serving older adults,” he said.

From mastering difficult dances to taking fast-paced walking tours, this course included steps to get students moving in the right direction. — O.B.

Geroscience The study of the genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms that make aging a major risk factor and driver of common chronic conditions and diseases of older people.

— National Institute on Aging Longevity Economy The sum of all economic activity driven by the needs of older people — AARP

WINTER 2023-2024 | 3

NEWS BITES

Los Angeles Times

IN THE MEDIA —

U.S. News & World Report

In study, reminder letters helped doctors make safer choices prescribing opioids “The enduring impacts suggest that the letters encouraged engagement among clinicians who would not have otherwise created PMP [prescription monitoring program] accounts or searched the PMP. This finding is noteworthy because account creation is an important barrier to PMP use.”

— Associate Professor of Gerontology Mireille Jacobson

CNN

Living with air pollution, especially from wildfires or agriculture, raises risk of dementia, U.S. study finds “Just like cigarettes, there’s no such thing as good inhaled particles. … Almost everything that air pollution does, cigarette smoke also does.”

— University Professor Caleb Finch

Associated Press

Deadly heat waves threaten older people as summer nears “Phoenix really is the model for what we’ll be seeing in other places. The world is changing rapidly and I fear we are not acting fast enough to teach people how harmful rising temperatures can be.”

— Associate Professor Jennifer Ailshire

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Work, school, caregiving. Multiple generations honor a family member while going about their lives “I think more people, particularly with the housing crunch, are going to be living together.”

— Research Associate Professor Donna Benton

The Guardian

Eat beans and scratch your own back — expert advice on how to age better, inside and out “[When it comes to aging healthily,] diet is much more powerful than anything else.”

— Professor Valter Longo

Los Angeles Times

In Sen. Feinstein’s death, lessons for all of us about when to leave work behind “In the case of Sen. Feinstein and so many, their identity is wrapped up in the work they do, and yes, I believe that many people don’t retire because they don’t know what else they would do. … Work is not life, and life is not work.”

— Instructional Associate Professor Caroline Cicero

BBC

Can slow breathing guard against Alzheimer’s?

“Slow-paced breathing might have benefits not only for emotional well-being — but also for improving biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”

— Professor Mara Mather

New York Times

What is the ideal retirement age for your health?

“One of the areas that we don’t talk enough about is: What do people deserve? Is a few wonderful years when you’re still healthy — that you can do things and travel and so on — is that a national goal?”

— Dean Pinchas Cohen

FEATURED MENTION

She’s multidegreed and overachieving. Her career choice?

Geriatric dentistry Los Angeles Times Somkene Okwuego ’21, MASM ’22, DDS ’26 was profiled in Golden State, a column on aging in California, regarding her interest in helping older adults, her education in gerontology, and her goal of becoming a geriatric dentist.

“There are so many aspects to [gerontology]. We’re all aging every day, and there’s something so humanistic to it. It’s a perfect way to blend science and empathy.”

NPR

U.S. life expectancy starts to recover after sharp pandemic decline “These are things that don’t require scientific investigation to know how to actually prevent them. Other countries prevent them. We don’t.”

— University Professor Eileen Crimmins

Los Angeles Times

Frisky is good; risky is not — the joys and hazards of sex and love in the titanium years “Gone are the days when people got married and stayed married.”

— Instructional Professor Paul Nash

Photo: Beth Newcomb

USA Today

Want to live healthier longer? Scientists aim to improve life quality over quantity “A professional football player needs a lot more protein than the average person. But after retirement, if that player eats the same amount of protein while exercising far less, it will lead to unhealthy fat.”

— Assistant Professor Cristal Hill

Los Angeles Times

These family robots can play trivia and act as security. Can they cure loneliness?

“You don’t want to spend Christmas Eve with a robot.”

— Senior Associate Dean Maria Henke

Wired

The secrets of aging are hidden in your ovaries “Menopause is basically the single most consequential event in a woman’s life in terms of health.”

— Assistant Professor Bérénice Benayoun

U.S. News & World Report

More Americans grow old alone, and faltering minds bring risks “Over 80% of long-term services and support for people is provided by friends and family, and if someone doesn’t have friends and family, either living with them or in the community, they need care, especially if someone’s living with dementia as the disease progresses.”

— Professor Kathleen Wilber

Washington Post

Six easy ways to reduce the sugar and salt in your diet “Americans are consuming far more processed foods than ever. …

Ultra-processed foods are being developed that have ‘hedonic’ — highly pleasurable — qualities, and salt and sugar play a significant role in promoting the hedonic properties in foods.”

— Instructional Professor Cary Kreutzer

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NEWS BITES FINDINGS —

Text and Email Reminders Increase COVID Booster Rates

“A key takeaway of our study is that many people in the United States will, in fact, get a COVID booster if we just remind them to do so.”

— Associate Professor Mireille Jacobson

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COVID-19 booster vaccination rates around the world are low, but increasing uptake may be surprisingly simple, according to a USC study. In a randomized controlled trial with nearly 60,000 patients, a one-time text or email reminder increased booster vaccination rates by nearly a third.

“A key takeaway of our study is that many people in the United States will, in fact, get a COVID booster if we just remind them to do so,” said Mireille Jacobson, co-author of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jacobson is an economist and associate professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and co-director of the Aging and Cognition Program at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

What’s more, researchers found that a financial incentive of $25 had no additional impact.

“Our work adds to the evidence that we in the U.S. treat the COVID vaccine differently from many other vaccines,” said coauthor Tom Chang, an associate professor of finance and business economics at the USC Marshall School of Business. “For example, small financial incentives have been shown effective in increasing flu vaccination rates, but they just don’t seem to work for COVID shots.”

The researchers found that even a simple one-time reminder message meaningfully increased COVID-19 booster uptake. Reminder messages were especially effective

among high-risk groups such as Spanish speakers and those age 65 and over. The overall results are consistent with concerns that limited outreach has contributed to low booster uptake in the U.S. The results also suggest that the financial incentives offered for booster vaccinations by some jurisdictions would have been better spent on additional outreach. — L.H.

Changes in Lipid Metabolism Affect How Cells Respond to Stress

Researchers at USC and the University of California, Berkeley, have shed light on how changes in lipid metabolism can impact the health of cells as they age and respond to stress.

The study focuses on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a structure within cells responsible for producing proteins as well as lipids, fatty compounds that play a variety of roles within the body. A properly functioning ER, sometimes called the “factory” of the cell, is essential for maintaining the quality of proteins and lipids within cells, said first author Gilberto Garcia, a postdoctoral researcher at the USC Leonard Davis School.

Garcia and colleagues identified a gene in the worm species C. elegans, LET-767, that plays an important role in maintaining the quality of lipids and proteins produced by the ER. When the LET-767 gene was suppressed, lipid stores in the worms’ cells decreased. The structure of the ER was altered, lessening its ability to respond to protein-related stress, and the affected worms were smaller and lived shorter lives.

“LET-767 codes for an enzyme that gets rid of toxic lipids and then converts them into good lipids,” said Ryo Sanabria, assistant professor of gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School and a co-author of the study. “So, if you get rid of it, then it really destroys ER health in two different ways: It accumulates the toxic product that it’s supposed to get rid of, and then also you don’t have the good stuff that it’s supposed to turn it into.”

Suppression of LET-767 and the resulting depletion of lipids blocked induction of the unfolded protein response (UPR) of the ER, a process typically triggered by the overaccumulation of unfolded or misfolded proteins.

Normally, the UPR acts to refold or clear out the oversupply of improperly folded proteins.

The blockage of this response could play an important role in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Sanabria said. These illnesses are examples of proteopathic diseases, which are characterized by the accumulation of abnormal proteins. — B.N.

Researchers in the Irimia Laboratory collated the brain MRIs of 4,681 cognitively normal participants, some of whom went on to develop cognitive decline or Alzheimer’s disease later in life.

Illustration: Courtesy of the Irimia Laboratory

AI Analysis Reveals Brain Age Details

An artificial intelligence model developed

by USC researchers that analyzes MRI brain scans could be used to accurately capture cognitive decline linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s much earlier than previous methods.

Brain aging is considered a reliable biomarker for neurodegenerative disease risk.

Such risk increases when a person’s brain exhibits features that appear “older” than expected for someone of that person’s age.

By tapping into the deep learning capability of the team’s novel AI model to analyze the scans, the researchers can detect subtle brain anatomy markers that are otherwise very difficult to detect and that correlate with cognitive decline.

“People age at different rates, and so do tissue types in the body,” said Andrei Irimia, associate professor of gerontology, qualitative and computational biology, biomedical engineering and neuroscience at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “We know this colloquially when we say, ‘Soand-so is 40, but looks 30.’ The same idea applies to the brain. The brain of a 40-yearold may look as ‘young’ as the brain of a 30-year-old, or as ‘old’ as that of a 60-yearold.”

Researchers collated the brain MRIs of 4,681 cognitively normal participants, some of whom went on to develop cognitive decline or Alzheimer’s disease later in life. The researchers utilized a neural network developed by Paul Bogdan, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and members of his Cyber Physical Systems lab group. This neural network — an AI model that “learns” through intensive, complex data analysis — allowed the research team to predict participants’ ages from their brain MRIs. First, the researchers trained the network to produce detailed anatomic brain maps that reveal subject-specific patterns of aging. They then compared the perceived (biological) brain ages with the actual (chronological) ages of study participants.

The greater the difference between the two, the worse the participants’ cognitive scores, which reflect Alzheimer’s risk.

The results show that the team’s model can predict the true (chronological) ages of cognitively normal participants with an average absolute error of 2.3 years, which is about one year more accurate than an existing, award-winning model for brain-age estimation that used a different neural-network architecture.

“Interpretable AI can become a powerful tool for assessing the risk for Alzheimer’s and other neurocognitive diseases,” said Irimia, who also holds faculty positions with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “The earlier we can identify people at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease, the earlier clinicians can intervene with treatment options, monitoring and disease management.” — N.R.

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NEWS BITES NEW DIRECTIONS —

Minority Aging Research Center Secures $3.6M for Alzheimer’s Research

“As a RCMAR scientist, I benefited from the thoughtful feedback of experts across a variety of fields.”

— Associate Professor Jennifer Ailshire

$11.2M Research funding awarded to RCMAR alumni since 2012

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The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded a five-year, $3.6 million grant to fund USC’s Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR), which supports junior scientists exploring health and economic disparities associated with dementia.

The RCMAR, housed within the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, focuses on pathways by which social, behavioral and economic factors — as well as policies and health systems — affect disparities in risk of dementia and disparities in the health, health care and economic outcomes of people living with dementia.

The center also helps launch the careers of underrepresented junior investigators, providing funding, mentorship, and tools to support their pilot research projects.

Now called the USC Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias Resource Center for Minority Aging Research, the center was established in 2012 and has supported 34 scholars from USC and 14 other institutions. Alumni of the program have received more than $11.2 million in research funding and have published more than 268 peer-reviewed articles. Many scientists have received academic promotions and met career goals.

Funding from the National Institutes of Health — which includes the NIA — has totaled $9.7 million. The center receives generous financial support from the USC Price School of Public Policy and USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Other participat-

ing centers, schools and institutions include the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Howard University, Spelman College, California State University, Fullerton, and other NIA-funded centers at USC including: Roybal Center for Behavioral Interventions in Aging, Alzheimer Disease Research Center, Center for Advancing Sociodemographic and Economic Study of AD/ADRD, and USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health.

Two new leaders of the program — USC Price School Associate Professor Emma Aguila and USC Leonard Davis School Associate Professor Jennifer Ailshire — are former USC RCMAR scholars themselves.

“As a RCMAR scientist I benefited from the thoughtful feedback of experts across a variety of fields,” Ailshire said. “I also think I became a better advocate for my own research because the RCMAR faculty pushed us to explain why our findings were important and how these findings could be used to improve the health of individuals and communities.”

As principal investigator, Ailshire will help oversee the center’s Analysis Core, which develops new data and analytical resources for scientists and faculty. She coleads the Analysis Core with Karen Lincoln, professor at University of California Irvine, and Mireille Jacobson, associate professor at USC Leonard Davis School.

Aguila, also a principal investigator, is in charge of the Research and Education Core that selects pilot study proposals and mentors researchers. She co-leads this group along with University Professor Eileen Crimmins of USC Leonard Davis and María P. Aranda, professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. — C.H.

New Programs and Meeting Put Geroscience on the Map The emerging field of geroscience offers a path to healthier aging by providing personalized interventions based on our increasing understanding of the human genome. When it comes to shaping the future of this exciting research area, the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is the place to be.

The school recently launched a new geroscience minor, hosted the inaugural Geroscience Los Angeles Meeting (GLAM), and began accepting applicants for the nation’s first geroscience PhD program. The goal of all this activity is to leverage the school’s multidisciplinary expertise to shape the next generation of leaders who will advance discovery and provide innovative solutions for our aging society.

GEROSCIENCE MINOR Active research participation is a key element of this new minor, and it is already paying off for biomedical engineering major Nicholas Kim. Motivated by his family’s history with Alzheimer’s disease, he is eager to pursue a career that leverages geroscience to improve the health of older adults. He’s already presented his research at a conference in Colombia and believes a minor in geroscience fills an important role for anyone focused on the future.

“Everyone experiences aging regardless of who or where you are,” Kim said, “so I think it’s very relevant and there’s a definite need that’s not being recognized.”

select a specialty among neuroscience, molecular and cellular biology, stem cell and regenerative sciences, and biomedical sciences.

“Exciting new methods and tools are fueling discoveries and fostering greater collaboration and the establishment of new standards,” said USC Leonard Davis School Vice Dean Sean Curran. “Our PhD in geroscience provides students with an opportunity to make essential breakthroughs while transforming the study of aging.”

GEROSCIENCE LOS ANGELES MEETING (GLAM) Scientists from across Southern California gathered Sept. 22, 2023 at the USC Leonard Davis School for the inaugural Geroscience Los Angeles Meeting (GLAM), a daylong conference showcasing the work of students and trainees in aging research.

Giving students and trainees opportunities to present research and network was a focus for the event, as non-faculty have limited opportunities to do so at many other scientific meetings, according to Curran and Assistant Professors Bérénice Benayoun and Ryo Sanabria, the event’s organizers.

Presenters expressed their appreciation for the experiences made possible by the event. “It was an honor and pleasure to present my research at GLAM,” said Shanshan Yin, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Professor Peter Adams at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. “All the sessions provided comprehensive coverage of key aging topics, offering valuable insights for attendees.”

The event was organized by the Los Angeles Aging Research Alliance, a partnership among USC, UCLA, Cedars-Sinai and other area organizations involved in aging research to promote age-related advances and improve health and well-being across the lifespan, along with support from the Hevolution Foundation. Sponsors included VWR, Oxford Nanopore, Eppendorf, Thermo Fisher Scientific, ECHO, Agilent Technologies, Active Motif and Beckman Coulter. — O.B.

Photo: Natalie Avunjian

GEROSCIENCE PHD PROGRAM The USC Leonard Davis School’s new doctoral program in geroscience is designed for students who want to become leaders in applying a new framework to our understanding of aging and aging processes. The focus is on molecular, cellular and regenerative medicine as well as the integrative biology of aging. PhD candidates take core courses on the molecular and cellular biology of aging and age-related diseases, and then

The inaugural GLAM event featured a research poster session.

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VITAL SIGNS

Breathe Deep, Defend the Brain “Regularly practicing slowpaced breathing via HRV biofeedback may be a low-cost and low-risk way to reduce plasma Aβ levels and to keep them low throughout adulthood.”

— Professor Mara Mather

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The exercise was simple: Inhale for a count of five, then exhale for a count of five. Do that for 20 minutes, twice a day, for four weeks.

These brief breathing sessions had significant impacts: The study volunteers’ heart rate variability increased during each exercise period, and the levels of amyloid beta peptides circulating in their blood decreased over the four weeks of the experiment.

Led by USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Professor Mara Mather and published in the March 2023 issue of Nature Scientific Reports, the study may be the first to discover a way that adults, both young and old, can reduce their amyloid beta levels: via breathing exercises that lower the levels in our blood of these peptides associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

That’s because the way we breathe affects our heart rate, which in turn affects our nervous system and the way our brain

produces proteins and clears them away.

While we are awake and active, we typically use our sympathetic nervous system. This is sometimes known as the “fight or flight” system, but we also use it to exercise, to focus attention and even to help create long-lasting memories. While the sympathetic nervous system is activated, there isn’t much variation in the time between each heartbeat. In contrast, when the parasympathetic system is activated, heart rates increase during inhaling and decrease during exhaling.

When we’re young — or older, but very fit — our body slides easily between the sympathetic nervous system and its partner, the parasympathetic nervous system. Sometimes known as the “rest and digest” part of our system, the parasympathetic nervous system allows us to calm down, digest food easily and sleep soundly. When these kinds of activities occur, the variation between heartbeats is greater.

Illustrations: Blueastro/iStockphoto

by Constance Sommer

But as we age, our ability to access our parasympathetic nervous system — and thus, our heart rate variation — markedly decreases.

A 2020 study using smartwatches found that heart rate variability (HRV) drops on average 80% between ages 20 and 60. This finding could partially explain why we struggle to sleep deeply as we age.

“We know the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems influence the production and clearance of Alzheimer’s-related peptides and proteins,” said Mather, who directs the Emotion & Cognition Lab at the USC Leonard Davis School. “Nevertheless, there’s been very little research on how these physiological changes in aging might be contributing to the factors that make it conducive for someone to develop Alzheimer’s disease or not.”

Mather and fellow researchers from USC, the University of California, Irvine, and UCLA asked one group of participants to do biofeedback exercises with paced breathing twice a day, for 20 minutes at a time, and asked another group to simply think of calming activities or scenes. All the participants clipped a heart monitor onto their ear; that monitor was connected to a laptop the researchers provided.

The researchers took blood samples before the participants began the experiment and again after four weeks of biofeedback training. Then the researchers examined the plasma of participants from both groups, looking for amyloid beta peptides.

Accumulation of amyloid beta, or Aβ, in the brain due to increased production and/or decreased clearance is believed to trigger the Alzheimer’s disease process. In healthy adults who do not yet have signs of amyloid accumulation in the brain, higher levels of amyloid beta in circulating blood predicts a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

In Mather and colleagues’ study, plasma levels of both peptides decreased in the group that performed breathing exercises. The study appears to be the first to find that behavioral interventions can reduce the level of Aβ in plasma.

“At least to date, exercise interventions have not decreased Aβ levels,” said Mather. “Regularly practicing slow-paced breathing via HRV biofeedback may be a low-cost and low-risk way to reduce plasma Aβ levels and to keep them low throughout adulthood.”

The breathing exercise sessions involved inhaling for five seconds, exhaling for five seconds, and repeating the sequence for 20 minutes twice daily.

Learn more about the Emotion & Cognition Laboratory: gero.usc.edu/labs/matherlab

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Cristal Hill Assistant Professor of Gerontology

New Faculty Faces The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology has grown! Meet six of the school’s newest faculty members.

Read more: bit.ly/gerofaculty

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Michelle Keller Assistant Professor of Gerontology; Leonard and Sophie Davis Early Career Endowed Chair in Minority Aging

Q: What is the focus of your research?

A: In general, diets that either reduce caloric (CR) intake or alter the intake of amino acids, including dietary protein restriction (DPR), are reported to reduce the risks of age-related diseases and obesity.

The central focus of the Hill lab is to determine the impact of dietary protein on cellular and molecular adaptation within adipose tissue (i.e. body fat) during aging.

Q: What’s the best thing you’ve learned as you’ve gotten older?

A: Don’t sweat the small stuff! I learned to seek my purpose during grad school. Like this, I feel that moving with purpose and faith reassures me to support my husband, family/friends, and for the betterment of mankind.

Q: What is your favorite hobby/pastime?

A: Gardening and tending to houseplants. This hobby always sparks happy memories of spending time with my grandmother.

Q: What is the focus of your research?

A: My research focuses on designing and testing interventions to reduce potentially inappropriate medications and treatments in older adults. I also work closely with clinicians and health system leaders to design interventions that ensure that older adults, particularly underserved populations, are receiving high-value health care.

Q: What brought you to the USC Leonard Davis School?

A: I’m really excited to collaborate with our amazing faculty and students to improve the health of older adults. What I’m particularly excited about is the multi-disciplinary aspect of the school, which allows for collaborations between basic or bench scientists and social scientists.

Q: What is your favorite subject material to teach?

A: I love teaching about health policy, as it is an incredibly dynamic topic. Our health system is constantly changing and touches all of us, so I enjoy discussing policy changes with students and engaging them on how these changes affect our ability to access and pay for healthcare.

Photos: Natalie Avunjian; courtesy of Constanza Cortes; courtesy of Michelle Keller

Constanza Cortes Assistant Professor of Gerontology

Q: What is the focus of your research?

A: We focus on understanding why exercise is good for the brain, and how it can be used to help prevent or delay the onset of ageassociated cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.

Q: What brought you to the USC Leonard Davis School?

A: The critical mass of geroscience-focused research, and the possibility of joining a world-class environment with experts in any translational and socioeconomic areas of aging. Research cannot happen in a vacuum!

Q: What is your favorite subject material to teach?

A: Scientific/critical thinking. Being a scientist means always asking “why” and “how,” and seeing students develop those skills and begin to question facts they are given is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.

Francesca Falzarano Assistant Professor of Gerontology

Daniel Nation Professor of Gerontology and Medicine; Merle H. Bensinger Professorship in Gerontology

Lauren Brown Assistant Professor of Gerontology; Edward L. Schneider, MD Chair in Gerontological Research

Q: What is the focus of your research?

A: My research is a direct culmination of my own experiences after my mother was diagnosed with dementia when I was only 14 years old. I have since worked to build a program of research focused on bridging psychology and technology to identify the individual, contextual, and psychosocial factors contributing to heterogeneity in the experiences of dementia family caregivers. A major throughline of my work explores how technology could be leveraged to develop targeted behavioral interventions to better support the mental health and well-being of dementia family caregivers.

Q: What brought you to the USC Leonard Davis School?

A: The Leonard Davis School’s significant contribution to amplifying the field of gerontology makes me so grateful to have the opportunity to learn from leading experts that I can now call my colleagues. Also, as a lifelong New Yorker, the California weather isn’t bad either!

Q: What’s the best thing you’ve learned as you’ve gotten older?

A: I recently came across this quote by Mary Anne Radmacher that sums it up better than I can: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”

Q: What is the focus of your research?

A: My research focuses on vascular changes contributing to cognitive decline and dementia in older adults. In particular, I am interested in the hypothesis that increased cerebrovascular resistance and blood-brain barrier permeability drive neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment, particularly in those at genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease. My work aims to elucidate this process and to develop and refine neuroimaging and biofluid markers of these pathophysiological changes, which will ultimately inform therapeutic efforts.

Q: What brought you to the USC Leonard Davis School?

A: As one of the premier institutions of aging research in the world, the school is an ideal place to conduct research, collaborate and share ideas, and train the next generation of scientists and professionals in the field of aging.

Q: What is your favorite subject material to teach?

A: I most enjoy teaching students about the different neurocognitive disorders of aging, including the neuropsychology, neuroscience and neuropathology of these diseases. I find it rewarding to give students a holistic perspective on these disorders and to share stories from my experiences with patients and their families.

Q: What is the focus of your research?

A: My research uses publicly available data with the goal of understanding the unique difficulties Black Americans face in maintaining physical and psychological well-being as they age. ... While my work details the stress, racism, structural discrimination, and inequity that Black older adults have experienced, that is only part of the story. I also place emphasis on the coping, agency, strengths, resistance, joy, and rest that are part of the Black American experience.

Q: What brought you to the USC Leonard Davis School?

A: Los Angeles is home for me. I am originally from the Inland Empire but I have lived in South LA for 15 years now. I played soccer at USC as an undergraduate and got my PhD here at the Leonard Davis School in 2018. I think we have one of the most unique enviornments at the school of gerontology. I loved my coursework here, and It’s lovely to be back.

Q: What is your favorite part of teaching?

A: Teaching is such a beautiful and rewarding part of this job. The classroom is a space of creativity for me, but I always insist that the creativity not stay within the confines of the classroom. This role is sacred to me because I feel like it is my role to connect students to diverse ideas and perspectives, teaching them to sharpen and trust their skillsets, and then empower them to launch their own intellectual journeys.

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NEWS BITES

INNOVATION –

The Opportunity — and Necessity — of the ‘Longevity Economy’ Groundbreaking entrepreneurship event brings together experts to discuss meeting the emerging needs of an aging population.

Above, from left: Ori Birnbaum of Global Impact Ventures, USC Leonard Davis Dean Pinchas Cohen, Paul Scibetta of 22Health Ventures, and David Krane of Google Ventures (GV) discuss the role of venture capital in innovation for aging populations.

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The numbers tell the story: In 2020, nearly one in six people was 65 or older, according to the 2020 Census. A century ago, the total was less than one in 20. Every day, 10,000 Americans turn 65. AARP estimates the 50plus population contributes more than $8 trillion to the U.S. economy, rising to nearly $27 trillion by 2050.

To capitalize on the longevity economy and USC’s leading role in addressing it, faculty, students, staff and experts in gerontology, technology and entrepreneurship gathered Sept. 8, 2023 for the inaugural Aging Is Now/Aging Is the Future: Entrepreneurship Symposium, jointly hosted by the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and the USC Marshall School of Business.

“We are here at the right time and right place to make a difference in the lives of older people in this country,” said USC Leonard Davis School Dean Pinchas Cohen. “We need the government and private industry to come together and make big investments around aging. And all of you are going to be part of the solution.”

USC Marshall School Dean Geoffrey Garrett agreed.

“The zeitgeist behind this event is just spot-on,” said Garrett. “What we should be thinking about is taking advantage of the opportunities that an aging society produces.”

Misunderstanding older adults means missed opportunities, according to Maria Henke, senior associate dean at the USC

Leonard Davis School and an organizer of the event.

“There is a misconception that older adults don’t use technology,” said Henke, who recently launched a master’s degree in applied technology and aging at USC Leonard Davis. “What’s more, innovative products and programs that work well for older adults, work well for everyone else, too.”

Arnold Whitman, a pioneer venture investor in senior care and tech, founder of Formation Capital and Generator Ventures, and a member of the USC Leonard Davis School Board of Councilors, said cross-disciplinary collaboration is key.

“Universities should be incubators and educators of future thought leaders, innovators and research for global aging issues and solutions,” he said. “The opportunity is enormous, and the leadership is much appreciated.”

David Krane, CEO and managing partner of Google Ventures, spoke about how advances in artificial intelligence are driving

investment and optimism and allowing for a level of consumerization that wasn’t available before.

“Things are getting hot,” he said. “More and more people are waking up and seeing change is possible.”

Experts predicted much of that change would be in operational innovation and analytics, enabling technology and services that would help people age in their homes and communities. They encouraged attendees to challenge ageist stereotypes, combat inequity and persist through obstacles.

Henke sees a future for events like these at USC. “We hope to become an incubator for innovation and aging for the campus community and beyond,” she said. “We are already planning future conferences and educational activities.”

Until then, USC students and faculty will continue to work on the cutting edge. Aging may be the future. But the future is now.

— By Alexander Bernard with contributions from Andrew Faught.

“We need the government and private industry to come together and make big investments around aging.

And all of you are going to be part of the solution.”

— Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Leonard Davis School

Photos: Will Chiang

$27T The symposium featured an Ideas Marketplace, where USC alumni showcased startups focusing on the older adult marketplace. Above, Candace Walker MS ’20, CEO of Generation Connect, discusses how her company connects teens and older adults for technology help, online gaming and intergenerational support.

Projected total economic contribution of Americans 50 and older in 2050

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ROLE MODELS: Marilou and Mark Hamill on Healthy Aging

USC Leonard Davis supporters Marilou and Mark Hamill share their thoughts on aging well, their advice to younger people, and why “there’s no greater gift than education.”

By Beth Newcomb

F

Photo: Christina Gandolfo

rom snapshots of kids on Star Wars sets to a trio of small dogs trotting by a table bearing an Emmy statuette, the Hamill home gives a sense of the down-toearth partnership and family life behind an out-of-this-world career in entertainment.

For USC Leonard Davis School supporters Marilou and Mark Hamill, living and aging well calls for lots of love and laughter, the ability to let little things slide and an understanding of what matters most to them.

Keeping Family in Focus Married since 1978 and the parents of three grown children, the Hamills have always made family their first priority, says Marilou, a member of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Board of Councilors. Her biggest piece of advice for younger people with children: Slow down and enjoy being in the moment with your kids.

“I know I enjoyed my kids, but I just think, gosh, it went too fast. People often say that to young parents — ‘Enjoy it because it’ll go so fast’ — but do they really get it?” says Marilou, who met Mark during her career as a dental hygienist before leaving dentistry to focus on starting their family. “I wish I could have a little time machine and go back just for an hour here and there in their lives and relive it again.”

Even as Mark’s career as an actor took him across the country and overseas, Marilou and the children — Nathan, Griffin and Chelsea — would accompany him whenever possible. Staying connected was paramount.

“We were always together; I would never go off and just not see the family shooting something for months and months,” Mark says. “You have to stay engaged with your children and listen to them as separate people. I’m proud of the fact I have three grown children that don’t all hate my guts — that’s an accomplishment, right there.”

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Photo: Christina Gandolfo

A Spotlight on Aging ravages of old age’ — he was talking about having Advocating for causes close to their hearts has also some sort of surgery. And it’s ironic, because when I been an important part of their life together, and their worked with him, he seemed like a grandfather to me; number one involvement with charities is for education, he seemed like an older man,” Mark says. “And then Marilou says. She is active in a wide range of community someone pointed out to me, ‘When you came back to do and educational organizations, including USC, daughter the first sequel, you were the same age or a year older Chelsea’s alma mater (BA ’11, MCM ’13). than Guinness was in the original Star Wars.’ That was An invitation to visit the USC Leonard Davis School, kind of shocking to me, because your view of what you’re where Marilou toured laboratories and spoke with going to be like in 20 years doesn’t really match up. At faculty about their cutting-edge research, played a big 20, I didn’t imagine what I would be like at 40 or 50 or part in their decision to support the study of aging, she 60 until I got there. explains.

“And that’s the surprising thing — you don’t suddenly “I was just fascinated with the research that the facchange. You’re the same person. You might have to aculty are doing, and with the fact that I was getting older commodate certain physical limitations or the fact that and not younger, it just became a perfect fit,” Marilou you don’t see or hear or remember as well as you did. says.

But it doesn’t change who you are as a person.”

Marilou and Mark are 68 and 72, respectively. She also notes that a friend younger A Supporting Role in than her is living with Alzheimer’s Gerontology Education disease, so the impact of aging is Along with the USC Leonard not far from her mind.

Davis School Board of Council“I was just fascinated with the “A very popular saying is, ors, Marilou is a current member research that the [USC Leonard ‘You’re as young as you feel.’ I of the USC Associates Board of think we feel young, and then you Directors, the Town and Gown of Davis] faculty are doing, and look in the mirror — or what realUSC Board of Directors, and is the with the fact that I was getting ly gets me is a video,” she says. vice chair of the USC McMorrow And, of course, aging is a comNeighborhood Academic Initiative older and not younger, it just plex topic throughout the enterBoard of Councilors. She has been became a perfect fit.” tainment industry. Mark has had honored with numerous awards the unique experience of portrayfor her volunteer work, includ— Marilou Hamill ing his most famous character, ing the USC Alumni Association’s Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker, Widney and President’s awards, at both younger and older points and in 2020, Marilou was also along the lifespan in the franinducted into the prestigious USC chise’s feature films. He also played a younger version of Skull and Dagger. the character in the series The Mandalorian with the aid As part of their mission to help students realize their of sophisticated digital technology. educational dreams, Marilou and Mark have created Reprising his role as Luke in Star Wars Episodes 7, scholarships at several institutions, including at the 8 and 9 presented an important opportunity to portray Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles aging onscreen, he says.

City College, USC Annenberg School for Communication “I just thought it was healthy for young people, and Journalism, USC School of Dramatic Arts, and Town especially, to see the natural process of aging, because and Gown of USC. Most recently, the couple established you’re frozen in time and your life goes on, and yet they the Marilou and Mark Hamill Family Scholarship at the keep showing pictures of you when you were 24,” Mark USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. says. “That was the most appealing aspect of going back “I love the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology! The to that character — that you could then see him in his school has several of the most highly cited researchers 60s.” on the planet, and it’s just fascinating what they’re doing Reflecting on his decadeslong career also offers a lesand continuing to do,” Marilou says. “Dean [Pinchas] son in not limiting oneself with predetermined notions Cohen is just amazing, and I’m happy to be involved. about what it’s like to get older, he adds.

We love helping students that maybe wouldn’t have the “As Alec Guinness put it to me in a letter, ‘Ah, the opportunity to attend gerontology school; I really am

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Above: Griffin, Chelsea, Mark, Marilou, and Nathan Hamill at the unveiling of Mark’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 8, 2018.

Photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage

Page 16: Marilou and Mark Hamill with daughter Chelsea Hamill ’11, MCM ’13 and dogs Mabel, Millie, and Trixie.

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pleased to help students that otherwise might not have the chance to go to USC.” In October 2022, she and Mark were recognized for their support of gerontology education with the Dean’s Medallion, the USC Leonard Davis School’s highest honor, at the school’s annual Scholars and Benefactors Luncheon.

“There’s no greater gift than education,” Marilou said in her keynote remarks during the event. “The gift we give them now will pay off over and over. We’re investing today in the leaders of tomorrow.”

Mark also addressed the crowd of students, faculty, and supporters during the luncheon, taking the opportunity to laud Marilou and her service to USC. “I am so fortunate to do what I love to do with the best partner I could have,” he said at the time. “This is another item on the list of reasons to admire Marilou.”

Flipping the Script on Getting Older While much of society’s wider conversation on aging deals with declines and limitations, both Marilou and Mark say that getting older can be freeing.

“You learn to not sweat the little stuff. And Mark used to always say that to me, but I’d worry about everything,” Marilou recalls. “Now, it doesn’t matter. If I can’t find something, I’ll find it, or I won’t. Who cares?”

“That’s the motto of my life,” Mark adds. “Who cares?

Nobody! So just get over it and enjoy life. Life’s too short and then you die; it’s really a terrible ending for anybody that’s paying attention. But the longer you’re here, the more you appreciate what you have.”

Among the best parts of getting older: less self-consciousness, less worry about ultimately inconsequential things, and a greater appreciation for what really matters, according to the couple.

“That’s why people say, ‘Live in the moment,’” Marilou says. “You sometimes wonder, ‘I’d like to know when I’m going to die.’ And they say, ‘No, you don’t; just live every day as it’s your last.’ And that’s what you’ve got to do.”

“I’m just happy to be here because the alternative is so much worse,” Mark adds. “One thing that’s great about getting older is the older you get, the less you care in terms of, ‘Oh, how am I coming off?’ It’s one of those things where you’ve earned the right to be the way you want to be.”

“And that’s the surprising thing — you don’t suddenly change. You’re the same person. You might have to accommodate certain physical limitations or the fact that you don’t see or hear or remember as well as you did. But it doesn’t change who you are as a person.”

— Mark Hamill

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By Katharine Gammon • Illustrations by Maria Carluccio

Diet interacts with genetics and impacts the way we age.

Here’s what USC researchers are finding out about nutrition and healthy aging.

The old adage “You are what you eat” may be even more important when it comes to diet and aging. Older people have different nutritional needs from younger ones — and a healthy diet is linked to a lower incidence of cognitive decline. Researchers at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology have been studying the ways that different diets impact health span and the needs that older people have.

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For years, scientists have known that restricting calories — in organisms from yeast to mice and other mammals — leads to a longer life when it’s done without creating malnutrition. But researchers are starting to understand why this happens — and how to mimic these results in a way that’s easier to maintain. Other research is focusing on the types of diets that can achieve the healthiest long lives.

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Food power Cary Kreutzer, director of the Master of Science in Nutrition, Healthspan and Longevity Program, works with the Los Angeles Department of Aging, talking with older adults who participate in meal programs through the U.S. Administration on Aging. “Longevity in the aging process, that is an area of great interest on the aging spectrum,” she says.

When she talks with these older adults, she equates understanding food labels with food power — the power to know what they are putting into their bodies. It’s easy for older people to slide toward highly processed foods, as shopping and cooking can become challenging for aging hands. But Kreutzer tries to demystify the process as much as possible in her work.

She has some tips: For one, stay away from keto-​ genic diets. “Any diet that cuts out bread and fruit will not provide adequate nutrients and is difficult to sustain long-term, because you miss that stuff,” she says. And that boredom means people will drop the diet and gain weight back.

As for the Mediterranean diet? It’s great, Kreutzer says — less red meat, more seafood, beans and olive oil, and fewer processed foods like chips and cookies.

But that’s not the whole story. “The Med diet is not just about food; it’s about lifestyle,” she says, including daily physical activity. “I really wish people in the U.S. could embrace the lifestyle of the Mediterranean and not just the diet choices.”

She’s also excited about nutrigenomics, the study of the effects of nutrients on the expression of an individual’s genetic makeup. One example of how this works involves a genetic defect in processing folic acid from a gene called MTHFR. Some women with this genetic single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) may need to take a different form of folic acid while they are pregnant to prevent neural tube disorders in their fetuses. Diets based on genetic testing is an emerging science that may help people figure out what nutrients their bodies need.

Kreutzer points out that certain genetic SNPs make people perceive the taste of cilantro as soap or make it difficult to metabolize caffeine. “This field is just in its infancy,” she says, “but the possibilities are great.”

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A diet to extend life Valter Longo, a professor of gerontology and biological sciences, has been working in nutrition and longevity for a long time, and he says he’s seen diets come and go like the fashion of the week. People often look for shortterm fixes for their health or weight without looking at the ability of a particular diet to lengthen their lives. In Longo’s view, the body is like a machine, and certain diets can enable that machine to be more efficient in how it uses food.

His lab has developed an intervention, the fasting-​ mimicking diet, which provides for the benefits of fasting while allowing the consumption of food. In 2018, he wrote a book about the Longevity Diet, an everyday pescatarian diet combined with five-day periods of the fasting-mimicking program implemented four times a year.

Longo says he’s trying to move the idea away from fad diets and into five pillars of science: clinical studies, basic research, epidemiological studies, studies of longlived people, and complex systems. Eventually, he says, diets will be personalized, but he thinks most people can benefit from the type of eating he describes. A recent meta-analysis looking at China, Europe and the Americas showed that the Longevity Diet could extend life expectancy by up to 13 years if started at age 20.

He says the study of diets — which has long been considered a soft science — needs to become much more rigorous to get to the truth of how food and fasting impact the body. He envisions doctors prescribing a diet along with drugs for cancer treatment or other diseases to improve a person’s outcome.

For example, Longo’s research has shown that cycling a fasting-mimicking diet enables 40% to 70% of diabetes patients to reduce their drug use. “That’s basically saying, if drug use is reduced within six to 12 months, it isn’t unreasonable to think that in a few years, a lot of these patients are going to be essentially cured,” he says. “I think that in some cases, nutrition can also go after cures for specific diseases.”

“The Med diet is not just about food; it’s about lifestyle. I really wish people in the U.S. could embrace the lifestyle of the Mediterranean and not just the diet choices.”

— Cary Kreutzer, Director of the Master of Science in Nutrition, Healthspan and Longevity Program

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What happens when you eat after fasting Sebastian Brandhorst studies dietary-based interventions to improve overall longevity — as well as health span. “Our goal is not to make people live longer just for the sake of making life longer,” he says, “but we want them to live longer and healthier.”

The research assistant professor of gerontology is studying the application of the fasting-mimicking diet to a number of aging-related diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune diseases. Some of the results have been translated into clinical trials.

But his focus is now on a particular moment in the fasting period: what happens when people consume food again. Brandhorst says there’s good evidence to show that a turnover and activation of stem cells occurs, which can lead to tissue rejuvenation — the regeneration of tissues following the fast.

To study what happens during the refeeding period, he is testing several dietary approaches, modulating what mice eat — a low-protein or ketogenic diet, or any other dietary intervention — to see what happens in their tissue samples. For example, researchers can look

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at how brain cells react to different foods after a fast in mice that mimic Alzheimer’s patients. “And can we optimize this regeneration even further by modulating the feeding period?” he says. “That’s where our research is going right now, and it’s what we’re most excited about.”

Brandhorst’s big goal is to improve overall health — and he takes a system approach. “We’re not usually particularly interested in just one specific protein, what happens to that protein over time,” he says. “Instead, we’re always looking at the big picture: Is it feasible? Is it extending lifespan? Can it be translated to humans?”

Brandhorst adds that he sees a big misconception in the need for high protein intake. Studies show that up to age 60 or 65, low animal-based protein consumption is beneficial with regards to health and longevity. After that, there is evidence that higher protein intake is better to maintain lean muscle mass and avoid frailty. When he sees high-protein diets in kids and younger adults, he feels it’s the wrong diet. “I think there’s a big misconception based on gym culture but also marketing,” he says.

“There are high-protein drinks for kids, or high-protein pancakes, and they’re not good meals.”

Why we choose the diet we do Sean Curran, professor and vice dean of the USC Leonard Davis School, says diets should be personalized to the individual — but more research is needed on how an individual’s genetics, environment and socioeconomic status blend with the food they eat. He is also interested in how an individual’s microbiome influences the impact of the food they eat, including nutritional value, satiety and how each person uses or stores the energy they ingest.

Curran’s current research uses a small nematode, C. elegans, to examine how microbes influence the health and longevity of the organism. “We’ve found that diet can compensate for genetic deficiency,” he says. “A mutation in a gene that causes health decline later in life and short lifespan can be masked by simply feeding the animal a different diet.”

His lab has also identified diets that are longevity promoting, but there’s a catch. When given the choice, animals select any other food option available besides the longevity-promoting diet. “This provides a really great model to study how an animal makes decisions about what food to eat,” he says. He’s thinking a lot about what the basis of this choice is: Taste? Smell?

Feel? Or something else entirely? “There are lots of exciting new directions.”

What happens in a low-nutrient environment For years, it’s been documented that restricting calories — without causing malnutrition — is the gold standard to improve health span and extend life. Cristal Hill, assistant professor of gerontology, evaluated anti-aging diets in a recent review article published in the journal Science. She and co-authors focused on the many ways that cells respond to diets that are low calorie or that vary in macronutrients (i.e., carbohydrates, fat and protein) to identify potential targets for pharmaceuticals.

Hill has also been studying the overall health impact of a low-protein diet and why it appears to extend the lifespan. In 2021, she published research showing that a single liver-derived metabolic hormone, known as FGF21, induced by a low-protein diet appears to be responsible for lifespan extension in male mice. She’s now doing more to investigate the pathways that improve the function of adipose tissue, or body fat, to support healthy aging while on a low-protein diet.

Hill says it’s important to think not just about food but also about how to implement nutrient-dense foods into a lifestyle — and eating right for each stage or state

of a person’s life. “This understanding of nutrition and healthy aging is moving into precision nutrition or precision medicine,” she says.

Mediterranean diet and maintaining weight Roberto Vicinanza, instructional associate professor of gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School and a specialist in geriatric medicine, has studied the Mediterranean diet for years — as well as the impact that diet has on cardiovascular disorders. He says the diet — which stresses fruits and vegetables, cereals, legumes, extra virgin olive oil, nuts and fish — is strongly linked to positive health outcomes.

In one study published in 2018, Vicinanza found that the Mediterranean diet was inversely associated with cardiometabolic disorders and with polypharmacy, suggesting that improved adherence might potentially delay the onset of age-related health deterioration and reduce the need for multiple medications. His research has also found that the diet seems to have a positive impact on mental health, with people who adhere strictly to it being less likely to have depressive symptoms. All of it points to the importance of whole foods and living a balanced lifestyle.

It’s also important to maintain a steady weight to improve lifespan, Vicinanza says. Weight fluctuations in older adults are associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases. “Not only may being underweight after age 65 compromise health status and increase the risk of malnutrition, but weight fluctuations may also have negative effects,” Vicinanza says. “It’s good to have a stable weight and preserve muscle mass. This is the reason why we shouldn’t rely only on the weight you see on the scale but also consider a comprehensive evaluation of body composition.”

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Photo: credit info

SUPPORTING

THE FUTURE OF By Michelle McCarthy • Photography by Stephanie Kleinman THE FIELD

The Gerontology Enriching Medicine, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (GEMSTEM) to Enhance Diversity in Aging program supports the next generation of gerontology researchers.

Left: Chanelle Mizrahi, GEMSTEM scholar in the lab of Assistant Professor Bérénice Benayoun and junior in human development and aging

Chanelle Mizrahi’s interest in aging and how the body changes over time was piqued while she worked in a UCLA lab as part of a research program in high school. It became a fascination after her grandparents moved in with her family when she was a teenager. “I remember it was really hard for my parents to work and take care of them, especially because my grandma had Alzheimer’s,” says the junior majoring in human development and aging. “I knew I wanted to go to a college that not only had a great science program with amazing research labs, but also one that focused on aging.”

The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is now offering undergraduate students like Mizrahi the opportunity to take part in aging research through the newly launched Gerontology Enriching Medicine, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (GEMSTEM) to Enhance Diversity in Aging program.

The program is funded by a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. “GEMSTEM is a first-of-its-kind program designed to overcome longstanding financial, social support and professional barriers that have limited research opportunities for undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds,” says Professor Sean Curran, the grant’s contact principal investigator.

The objectives of the program include hands-on mentored research training, professionalization and building a peer community network. Associate Professor Jennifer Ailshire, GEMSTEM program co-leader, emphasizes that the program “removes the barrier of volunteering to gain experience. Instead, GEMSTEM participants work with geroscience experts at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and across research units at USC and are provided paid research opportunities funded by the GEMSTEM program, USC Leonard Davis or from the faculty mentor’s research program.”

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A GROWING NEED FOR CARE By 2030, California’s over-65 population is projected to grow by 4 million people, while the “number of seniors in every major racial/ethnic group will increase,” according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

By recruiting undergraduates from diverse backgrounds from within the USC Leonard Davis School and across USC — including transfers from two- and fouryear colleges that serve underrepresented minority students — GEMSTEM strives to bridge the gap between older generations and future medical professionals.

“It’s really important for us to not forget about our older populations,” says Associate Professor John Walsh, who is also a co-leader of the GEMSTEM program.

“Our hope is to reach out to the younger generation, those who are coming up in the aging field, and expose them to what’s happening so they can see that they can make an impact.”

Walsh recently coordinated a campus visit by more than 100 high school students from the Los Angeles Unified School District. The visiting students learned not only about the field of gerontology but also about the research opportunities the USC Leonard Davis School provides and the impact this can have on future careers.

Through her involvement with Sages & Seekers, an organization that facilitates conversations between young adults and elders, Mizrahi made a special connection. “The gerontology school as a whole has given me access to work with older adults,” she says. “I take part in a weekly Zoom call where you keep them company.

I’ve kept in contact with a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor who I now speak to on a daily basis. She’s an amazing woman who lives in Boston, and it’s cool to hear about her life and compare it to mine and also share what I’ve learned in my classroom and in the lab.”

LEARN, ADJUST AND MOVE ON The GEMSTEM program consists of a scholar track and a partner track. Students in the scholar track don lab coats and get paid to participate in active research alongside a principal investigator (PI). The partner track is open to all students and includes opportunities to attend colloquiums, social events, seminars and workshops.

“I’m so grateful for this position because it offers financial aid,” says Julia Olvera Ryan, a senior majoring in human development and aging. “I’ve been able to take care of costs I was stressed about and focus on my academics. Everybody’s dream is to get paid to do something they love. I’m excited to go to the lab and do research every single day.”

She was paired with a lab that is studying mitochondria-derived peptides in relation to aging, which is a personal issue for Olvera Ryan as her grandmother suffered from dementia. “I’m pre-med, so one day I hope to become a doctor and take care of people who are in similar positions as my grandma,” she explains.

As a part of GEMSTEM, Olvera Ryan says she’s learned everything from lab etiquette to how to perform western blotting, as well as broader lessons she can apply to her general life. “A lot of pre-med students struggle with being perfectionists and not wanting to make mistakes,” she says. “One of the first things I was taught was to admit your mistakes early so you can learn, adjust and move on.”

BOOSTING CONFIDENCE IN THE LAB Although Mizrahi took part in research in high school, where she studied foot ulcers in veteran populations, she still found that being a woman in STEM could be intimidating. She now says GEMSTEM has helped boost her confidence. “This program allows you a space where you feel like you always have somebody to talk to, including your PI, your mentor, lab assistants and students,” she says.

As students develop more confidence in the lab, they are also encouraged to present and discuss their work with colleagues. Josh Senior, a GEMSTEM scholar in USC Leonard Davis Professor Mara Mather’s Emotion & Cognition Lab, presented his research project “Mechanisms of Attentional Control and Suppression in Aging” at the 2023 USC Undergraduate Symposium for Scholarly and Creative Work. The project took second place in the Life Sciences category and earned Senior a $500 prize.

GEMSTEM also sponsors workshops, colloquiums and social events (including ice cream socials, performance events and Dodgers games) to provide students with a chance to meet other mentors in the program and ask

Right: Josh Senior, GEMSTEM scholar in the lab of Professor Mara Mather and junior majoring in biological sciences and international relations

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Left: Maria Oorloff, GEMSTEM scholar in the lab of Assistant Professor Ryo Sanabria and senior in human development and aging

questions while creating a network of support among participants. Curran says he’s impressed with how much the students have learned in just the first year of the program.

“We just had our first GEMSTEM retreat in Long Beach, where students presented research they’ve conducted and talked about what they’ve learned so far,” he says. “It is so rewarding to see these students develop and become ready to enter the professional workforce” in the medical and STEM fields.

Olvera Ryan relished the opportunity to take a break from campus and interact with fellow students — some of whom have become close friends. “The retreat offered another way to learn even more about what is going on in the gerontology building,” she says. “And I’ve made such good friends I wouldn’t have met any other way.”

Every week, Janessa Contreras attends the GEMSTEM colloquium, where lunch is provided and she can meet with peers from the program. “I get to listen to other people’s fascinating research, and they’re always willing to answer your questions,” she says. The junior majoring in lifespan health says her interest in the aging process was heavily influenced by her close relationship with her grandmother, Maria Christina, whom she refers to as her best friend. “She passed away right before I came to USC,” she says. “I knew I wanted to study something to give back to her demographic because I noticed there were a lot of inequities within the health system.”

CREATING A COMFORTABLE ENVIRONMENT When Michael Donkor, a sophomore majoring in biological sciences, started as a student worker in the business office of the gerontology building, he didn’t know much about the field. Over time, the conversations he had with faculty and staff members about aging opened his mind to the topic. “They introduced me to the GEMSTEM program, and I gave it a try,” he recalls. “I’ve loved it ever since.”

The program has had such an impact on Donkor that he’s reassessing his future plans. While he still aspires to go to medical school and become a pediatrician, he has a newfound passion for pursuing research. Either way,

Donkor says his time in GEMSTEM will inform his career.

“As I’ve learned about nutrition and healthy aging, there are many aspects that start off at the root, which is with children,” he says. “This research plays into what I want to do in the future.”

Donkor’s mentor is Cristal Hill, assistant professor of gerontology, who is investigating signaling between adipose tissue (body fat) and the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body. “She’s made things very comfortable for me,” Donkor explains. “As one of the only first-years in the program [last year], I was really nervous, but she’s been there for me — advising me, calming me down and giving me the best pep talks. I see her as my best friend.”

EXPANDING THE GERONTOLOGY PIPELINE The GEMSTEM program is an important response to the increasing size and diversity of the older population, says USC Vice President and Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer Christopher Manning.

“Utilizing best practices such as mentoring, providing research opportunities and mitigating financial barriers, GEMSTEM addresses a key need for diversification in one of the fastest-growing areas of health care,” Manning says. “I am greatly impressed by this program and proud that it is an opportunity that we can offer our students.”

As she works through the program, Mizrahi says her grandparents are never far from her thoughts. Her immediate goals include continuing her pursuit of aging research, whether in medical school or by earning a doctorate degree. “The experience with my grandma inspired me to really want to make a difference in the field of aging,” she says. “Currently, there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s or dementia. I think with research and time, eventually there will be substantial progress.”

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Photo: credit info

USC Leonard Davis School researchers advocate for caregivers and new policies to support them.

Crafting a Caregiving Safety Net

By Constance Sommer

Illustration: Matt Chinworth

Ten

years ago, the plight of family caregivers was not high on policymakers’ agendas.

California’s network of elder care support had endured deep budget cuts as a result of the Great Recession. Alarmed activists persuaded lawmakers to empower a commission that could raise awareness of the needs of older residents. Donna Benton, a research associate professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, was appointed to co-chair the commission’s caregiving task force.

The commission’s recommendations led to a state Master Plan for Aging, which, in turn, created a blueprint that legislators and bureaucrats continue to use to improve and enhance services for older Californians.

In 2019, for example, thanks to a recommendation from Benton’s task force, Gov. Gavin Newsom boosted funding for caregiving centers by $10 million per year for three years.

From advocacy to research, Benton and other USC Leonard Davis School faculty and graduate students

are shining a light on the complexities of caregiving and the needs of caregivers of older adults. In the process, they’re revealing a hard truth: Even as more is done to support those providing elder care, gaping holes in our social safety net mean caregivers continue to struggle.

Professor Kathleen Wilber, the Mary Pickford Foundation Chair in Gerontology, has served on the state caregiving task force that Benton co-chaired. She knows that California offers more services and invests more money in caregiving than many other states. Still, compared with other postindustrial nations, she says, that’s not much.

“In the U.S., it’s just assumed that, whatever hand you draw in terms of being a caregiver, you do it, and that’s a family responsibility,” she says. “It’s pretty piecemeal, and there’s a lot of financial implications and loss” for the caregiver.

Wilber has focused her research on elder abuse. This can be an issue in caregiving when caregivers are so stressed out and overburdened that they lash out at their loved ones, she says.

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“This happens even unintentionally with people who are doing their best,” she says. “Part of the research I’m working on is, how do we do a better job helping them?

And what tools do we have to help them avoid that thing where Mom’s up all night and at risk of wandering? Nobody can do that 24/7.”

A 2020 study, which Wilber co-authored with faculty from Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Leonard Davis, illustrated how critical familial support can be.

The study examined the types of abuse reported to the National Center on Elder Abuse resource line. Nearly 50% of the time, the abusers were identified as family members, making family caregivers the most commonly identified perpetrators. Financial abuse was the most commonly reported abuse (54.9%); when there was physical abuse, it was likely to co-occur with another type of abuse (65.9%). The findings, the researchers wrote, “point to the importance of supportive resources for elder abuse victims and their loved ones.”

It’s that support — and strengthening it further — that remains the goal for researchers and advocates.

When Benton first joined the California Commission on Aging, caregiver resources were in jeopardy. California has 11 regional Caregiver Resource Centers, which support 18,000 people annually with services such as respite care, support groups, and legal and financial counseling. In 2012, after enduring deep cuts, the centers nearly saw their funding eliminated in a budget proposed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown.

“IN THE U.S., IT’S JUST ASSUMED THAT, WHATEVER HAND YOU DRAW IN TERMS OF BEING A CAREGIVER, YOU DO IT, AND THAT’S A FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY. IT’S PRETTY PIECEMEAL, AND THERE’S A LOT OF FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS AND LOSS.” — Professor Kathleen Wilber

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Funding for caregivers and caregiving of older adults “has advanced, really significantly, since I was on the commission,” Benton says. “There’s been the acknowledgment that we need a stable, statewide system for caregiver resources.”

Benton, who is director of the Family Caregiver Support Center and the Los Angeles Caregiver Resource Center at USC Leonard Davis, has also focused on the monetary struggles of family caregivers. Many take leaves from work to care for adult family members but suffer financially as a result. California is among the minority of states — most of which are on the coasts — that offer its residents some pay for their labors. A bill Benton advocated for, which Newsom signed into law last year, will boost that reimbursement. But it’s for only eight weeks of caregiving time per year (many states offer 12); cannot be used by a caregiver who is a friend rather than a relative; and, despite numerous state marketing campaigns, remains unknown by many people who could benefit from it.

With so much still left to be done, some of Benton’s priorities these days are ensuring “caregivers can have protected time off and making sure that wage replacement is sufficient,” she says. She’s particularly aware that employers and policymakers often equate elder care with parental leave, but they aren’t always the same. Unlike when workers take time off to care for a newborn, a caregiver for an older adult may see circumstances shift and change around a patient’s illness, she says.

“For an older adult, it might be that they have an intensive period of two or three weeks” of needing care, she says, “and then, maybe months later, [a patient] needs to go back for checkups. And so I really talk a lot about being able to use the more flexible pieces of our paid family leave policies, which is called intermittent care.”

Benton also collaborated recently on a research team with Susanna Mage, a PhD in Gerontology candidate.

This research, led by Kylie Meyer, a 2018 USC PhD in Gerontology alumna and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University, looked at the financial burden of caring for another person on one particularly hard-hit group: Latino caregivers. A 2021 AARP survey of family caregivers found that Latino caregivers, on average, spent nearly half their annual income on caregiving. By comparison, whites spent 18% of their income, Asians 22% and Blacks 34%.

“We were trying to understand what would make this population different from other ethnicities of caregivers,” Mage says.

A subsequent paper, titled “‘I Lay Awake at Night’: Latino Family Caregivers’ Experiences Covering Outof-Pocket Costs When Caring for Someone Living With Dementia,” was published in February 2023 in The Gerontologist. The researchers found a strong sense of familial obligation among Latino caregivers, coupled with day-to-day income challenges and a dearth of savings.

“They were kind of always distressed, wondering, ‘How am I going to pay for my loved one? What if they have to have more care than I can provide? Am I going to be able to provide for my children?’” Mage says.

Mage switched careers (she had been an environmental scientist and health care consultant) after serving as a caregiver to her father. But she says she’s been surprised to learn that even as intense as that experience was, it was cushioned significantly by her family’s financial resources.

She’s come to see financial hardship “like the ledge that you’re born on,” she says. “Some people are born on a very wide ledge, so if they take a tumble, they’ll be OK. Some people are born on a financial tightrope, so they can’t really make a lot of mistakes.”

Mage’s research focuses on caregiving for those living with dementia because it is both intensive and long-lasting, she says. It’s become clearer than ever to her, she says, that the vast majority of caregivers need more support than they get.

“A lot of people don’t realize that if you [an older person] want to stay at home, and you’re not able to live independently, you’re going to need the help of a caregiver,” she says. “And that person is most likely going to be very expensive, or it’s going to be a family member.”

Most family members don’t realize that either, she says. They may reject putting their relative into a nursing home, yet they are caught by surprise when they find themselves thrust into a caregiver role that they may not want nor feel prepared to assume.

“There’s a disconnect here,” Mage says. As a society, “we’re not looking enough at how policies could be developed to offset these out-of-pocket costs that caregivers are spending.”

The next step in Mage’s doctoral research is analyzing the acceptability of a five-week intervention designed by Meyer’s team following their previous research, which was published in The Gerontologist and funded by the AARP Foundation. The intervention focuses on ways to support Latino family caregivers via financial education and training.

Held virtually, the intervention program, Confidently Navigating Financial Decisions and Enhancing Financial Well-Being in Dementia Caregiving (CONFIDENCE),

“THERE’S A DISCONNECT HERE. AS A SOCIETY, WE’RE NOT LOOKING ENOUGH AT HOW POLICIES COULD BE DEVELOPED TO OFFSET THESE OUT-OF-POCKET COSTS THAT CAREGIVERS ARE SPENDING.” — PhD in Gerontology Candidate Susanna Mage

includes instruction and advice on financial issues that come up in caregiving, everything from how to check a credit report to how to know if you’re eligible for certain kinds of government financial support, Mage says. The researchers then plan to follow up with participants to see how helpful the intervention was, and whether it was relevant to their experiences and applicable to their culture, she says.

There’s still so much to be learned about what caregivers need and how best to help them, Benton says.

But her experience on the Commission on Aging, how it helped create the Master Plan and how that, in turn, continues to result in new laws, policies and funding, has shown her the power of this work.

She thinks of it like a series of “concentric ripples,” she says.

The research and the policy work is like “a stone that you’ve dropped,” she says. “Then the ripples start going out.”

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Illustrations: ma_rish/iStockphoto

One Size doesn’t Fit All

How the sexes age differently, and what that might mean for scientists, doctors and patients.

By Constance Sommer

When we study aging, who are we really studying?

Men? Or women? Does it even matter?

Bérénice Benayoun believes it does. Nevertheless, she went into her latest experiment “agnostic,” she says. Her team treated macrophages (a type of immune cell) from older male and female mice with a pathogen-like molecule, then watched to see if they went after the intruder in the same way.

They did not.

“The male macrophages, we give them ‘pathogens,’ they eat them up normally, they do everything normally,” says Benayoun, an assistant professor of gerontology, biological sciences, biochemistry and molecular medicine at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “But the female macrophages — oof. Let’s just say it’s kind of sad. They’re about 30% less good at taking up and clearing pathogens” than their male counterparts.

For years, Benayoun has grown frustrated watching researchers study only male subjects and then apply those findings universally to both sexes. Once, she recalls, a man described the reasoning to her face: “He said, ‘Females are just males with hormones.’”

Benayoun and other USC Leonard Davis School scientists are challenging that idea with new research investigating how the sexes age differently and asking what that might mean for physicians and patients alike. From how Alzheimer’s disease affects female and male brains differently, to the ways menopause affects the body and brain, to the very immune system itself, USC researchers are examining not only what we know but also, critically, what we don’t about how women age differently from men.

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In 2014 the National Institutes of Health announced a policy requiring preclinical research projects to consider sex as an important biological variable in both animal and human studies.

Initially, Teal Eich wasn’t looking to track sex differences in her research. The assistant professor of gerontology and psychology at USC Leonard Davis is a cognitive neuroscientist who’s fascinated by memory and how it changes as we age. Then she noticed work other scientists were doing around the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is a part of the brain that’s critical in the formation of episodic memory, and it is hit early and hard by Alzheimer’s disease. People who are in early stages of dementia show signs of an overactive hippocampus when they are trying to remember something, studies show.

“But what causes this at the neuronal level?” Eich says. “Why are we getting this [result]?”

A 2017 study by University of Cambridge scientists pointed to a possible answer. Study subjects who had less of a neurotransmitter called GABA had a harder time suppressing unwanted memories than those who had more, the researchers found. Eich wondered whether these results held insights into the mechanisms of cognitive decline in older people.

So she organized a small pilot study of 20 individuals ages 50 to 71 — 11 of whom were women — and assigned them to tasks designed to challenge their memories. As the subjects did so, researchers measured GABA

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6 in 10 people living with Alzheimer’s are women.

levels in their right hippocampus.

“We found GABA was dysregulated — but only in women,” Eich says. “The women who had less GABA had impaired memory, but [the neurotransmitter level] was pretty flat for all the men.”

That led Eich to her current study, where she’s looking at whether a decline in sex hormones in midlife through old age is associated with neurotransmitter levels and memory function in the hippocampus. The study overrepresents women, she says, because that’s the sex they’re most interested in for this topic. Hoping to gather more data about women and hormones over the life cycle, particularly as it relates to menopause, Eich went looking for comprehensive health surveys, and found none.

“There’s not a lot of interest in the middle-aged woman and what will happen based on her later in life,” she says. “It seems like this cavern. There’s this massive change that women go through, that we know must affect late life, and there’s just very, very, very little information.”

About 6 of every 10 people living with Alzheimer’s are women. While the waxing and waning of sex hormones may play an important role, Eich says, they probably aren’t the only reason for that statistic.

nearly

2X

51

as many women as men report significant side effects from prescription drugs.

is the average age of menopause onset in the U.S. Unlike men, who see a long-term, gradual decrease in their sex hormones, women experience a sudden drop at menopause.

Eich’s colleague Christian Pike is also looking at the part genes play in the disease’s development. Working with mice that are genetically engineered to get Alzheimer’s, he’s created some that also carry the gene APOE4.

That’s a human gene that increases the likelihood of Alzheimer’s disease in people. Other mice carry the more common version of the gene, APOE3, which is not believed to increase Alzheimer’s risk.

Not only was there a marked difference between the APOE4 and APOE3 mice, but the difference was particularly profound between the male and female mice, Pike’s lab found in a collaborative study with University Professor Caleb Finch.

“We can see, my gosh, the mice with APOE4, they’re much worse,” says Pike, professor of gerontology and assistant dean of research at USC Leonard Davis. “And if we look at males versus females, the females with the APOE4 are even worse” than the males with the same gene, he says.

This adds to Pike’s growing body of research showing that women appear to be more vulnerable to the disease than men. Other studies found that women with more typically feminine hands had a higher risk of developing dementia than those whose finger lengths more closely resembled a typical male’s. And, in a study with senior

author Margaret Gatz, professor of psychology, gerontology and preventive medicine, women who had a male twin were found to have a lower risk of dementia in old age than women with a female twin, presumably due to the advantage conferred by male hormones in utero.

“There are these layers of differences between the sexes, and sometimes there are interactions between sex and genetic risk factors, even perhaps protective factors,” Pike says. “A lot of that is still remaining to be determined.”

Pike is working with Benayoun to take this lab research a step further. They are looking at the effect on their mice of certain drugs that the National Institute on Aging found increase lifespan in mice.

The APOE4 gene, which the researchers inserted into the mice, doesn’t just increase the risk of Alzheimer’s, Pike explains. It also leads to faster aging. But the drug he and Benayoun are working with, when given to the mice as they enter early middle age, essentially reverses that effect. However, the researchers have only tested the results in male APOE4 mice, as the previously published work from the NIA only showed delayed aging in male mice.

“When we look at what the drug does to them, on almost all measures it improves mice with APOE4 with

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modest or no effects on the mice with APOE3,” Pike says.

“So, it’s like taking a longevity molecule.”

The vast majority of NIA’s longevity-enhancing drugs only work on male mice, Benayoun notes—perhaps because, for decades, scientists were not allowed to include women in Phase I and II drug trials, she says.

One reason, she says, was the fear that a woman could get pregnant during the trial and the drug could somehow damage the fetus. But “women know how to take measures to not get pregnant,” she says, and excluding them turned out to be dangerous as well.

“My guess is there’s a lot of drugs that right now are assumed to be working in women that just don’t work for them,” she says, “and drugs that failed Phase I and II [on male subjects] that would actually work if we had tested them in women.”

It’s probably not coincidental, Benayoun says, that nearly twice as many women as men report significant side effects from prescription drugs.

“As a scientist, when I started learning these things, I was kind of appalled,” she says.

If half of the human population is female, yet much of modern medicine is designed for men, “we are very poorly promoting the general health, well-being and longevity of women,” she says.

That has particularly profound implications, she says, when it comes to menopause — a major female life experience that has no male counterpart.

A male-centric view of menopause is that it’s just about the end of fertility, Benayoun says. In fact, “menopause is the single biggest life event in terms of health for a woman,” she says.

Unlike men, who see a gradual decrease in their sex hormones over the course of a lifetime, women experience a sudden drop at menopause. That puts them at risk for age-related illnesses that were not an issue before, Benayoun says. And scientists have found that the age at which a woman goes into menopause can help predict how long she’s going to live. (Hint: Earlier is not better.)

“Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, cardiovascular events — all of these things, before menopause, they’re almost nonexistent, and yet the incidence in women skyrockets after that,” Benayoun says. “Menopause is a huge thing.”

Determined to study the subject in the lab, Benayoun decided to create something she hadn’t seen before: menopausal mice. Almost no other animals besides humans experience menopause (the exceptions being killer whales and short-finned pilot whales). To put mice into something resembling menopause, Benayoun had to inject them with a chemical called VCD that over a period of time depletes the mice’s ovarian reserves.

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This has been done before with very young rodents, but by using older mice (6 to 10 months old), Benayoun’s lab may have found a closer parallel to the human experience of menopause.

The results have not yet been published, Benayoun says, but if it works out, then her lab has a way to test potential treatments on mice. “We can see if such-and-such a treatment would help postmenopausal women,” she says. “Whereas now, we just don’t know.”

But aging in women (and men) is about more than hormones, as Benayoun found with her immune-response experiments.

The reason the macrophages in male mice outperformed those in females appears to be partially about hormones, she says. But some of it seems to be about genetics as well. Benayoun and her colleagues are trying to use what they’ve learned about the faster aging in the female cells to alter those cells so they are more resilient and capable, even at advanced ages.

If all goes well, one day soon her lab will be able to say, “‘Hey, we found something that’s very clearly not happening the same [between males and females], and we can tell you, at least partially, why it’s different,’” she says.

The findings would hardly be the last word in a decadeslong debate about the wisdom of studying females. Still, Benayoun says, it would be nice to offer naysayers hard evidence of how wrong they are.

“Finding a female-specific effect vindicates the fact that we do need to study both men and women,” she says, “and that we’re probably making a lot of wrong assumptions about the state of things by just looking at males.”

Ultimately, the more scientists learn about the aging processes of both sexes, the more everyone benefits, she says.

“The goal is not to extend lifespan; it’s to extend healthspan,” she says. “And if we can increase that, both women and men will see a lot of benefit.”

“Finding a female-specific effect vindicates the fact that we do need to study both men and women, and that we’re probably making a lot of wrong assumptions about the state of things by just looking at males.”

— Assistant Professor Bérénice Benayoun

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At Any Stage for Any Age Often confused with hospice, palliative care has a champion in USC gerontologist Susan Enguídanos, who has dedicated herself to expanding access to this beneficial resource.

Photos: Courtesy of Lydia Sloan family

By Candace Pearson

On a sunny day in early July 2022, just two weeks short of her 94th birthday, Lydia Sloan could be found in her favorite place — the flourishing garden of her Palo Alto home, pruning bushes and picking tomatoes for the dinner she would make that night.

She had lived there for more than six decades with her husband, Charles, until his passing several years earlier. Together, they raised three children in the town in which she grew up and graduated from Stanford University, where they met.

Strong-minded and determined to make it on her own, Sloan regularly exercised her passions for reading, gardening and family. But that independent life was about to change.

Suddenly, she lost her balance and fell. She hit the ground hard, breaking multiple bones, including her clavicle and her femur in four places. It took two hours, pushing herself on her back, to return to her house to call 911.

Over the next few months, Sloan had increasing back pain. At first, doctors suspected her injuries and long-standing scoliosis of the spine. After four visits to the emergency room, she finally got a diagnosis: uterine cancer.

“My mother had enjoyed the gift of health her whole life,” says her eldest daughter, Margaret “Blue” Tierney.

“She wasn’t prepared for this. Neither were we.”

The family would soon learn a new phrase: palliative care. Though unfamiliar, it would wrap a compassionate, useful embrace around them all when they needed it most.

Discovering a Valuable Resource Palliative care is a largely misunderstood and underutilized resource often confused with its betterknown cousin, hospice care. “It’s considered an extra layer of support — at any stage for any age,” says Susan Enguídanos, associate professor of gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Widely renowned in the field of palliative care, Enguídanos has spent decades studying its effectiveness and benefits — and trying to remove barriers to its usage.

Palliative care flies under the radar of many patients who could benefit from it — as well as of a majority of physicians. If you search online for “palliative care,” what often comes up is “hospice” or “end-of-life care.”

Neither is accurate. “One of the things we know from research is that a lot of people conflate the terms,” says Enguídanos.

In California, and elsewhere, many hospice organizations also provide palliative services, compounding the confusion. Television medical dramas don’t help.

“Many people get their health care information from TV,” says Deborah Fui-Yuen Hoe, an instructional assistant professor for gerontology who collaborates in the Enguídanos Lab. “Very few medical series mention palliative care, and those that do often get it wrong.”

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What Palliative Care Is and Isn’t At its most basic, palliative care is support for people with serious chronic or complicated illnesses. It can start as early as the day of diagnosis. Hospice care comes in when a patient has a terminal illness with six months or less to live.

Patients must forgo curative care in hospice, while palliative care can be provided alongside other medical treatments. Whether or not a cure is anticipated, palliative’s focus is on pain relief and other physical, psycho-​ social and spiritual support for patients and families.

In palliative’s home-based interdisciplinary approach, each team includes a physician, nurse, social worker, chaplain and home health aide. Enguídanos developed and tested this home-based palliative care model in two pivotal research studies published in 2002 and 2007 and conducted in Kaiser Permanente HMOs in California, Colorado and Hawaii.

The 2007 clinical trial enrolled more than 300 seriously ill patients. Its findings: Patients receiving homebased palliative care had fewer emergency department visits, inpatient hospital days, skilled nursing days and physician office visits than patients on usual medical care.

With more home visits than typical patients, homebased palliative care patients experienced a far lower cost of care — 37% to 45% below standard care. And they were more likely to die at home, a place most people prefer to be at end of life.

Quick Learning Curve Required Blue Tierney didn’t know these statistics in the summer of 2022. She only knew she had to act quickly. Ever independent, her mother still wanted a place of her own. So, Tierney and her husband, Phil, moved her to an assisted living facility close to their home in Placerville in the Sierra Foothills.

The Tierneys had one advantage: They come from a medical family, with a son who is a head and neck surgeon, and one daughter-in-law who’s an endocrinologist and another in residency in emergency medicine. Their son gave them his prescription for his grandmother: “She needs palliative care.”

The Tierneys weren’t sure what that was. They went to Sloan’s primary care doctor, but he couldn’t make any referrals.

Phil Tierney set to work. “First, I looked for palliative care doctors or doctors with it in their portfolio. I identified three in our area — it seemed pretty sparse,” he says. In an amazing synchronicity, the Tierneys found

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what they needed in a nonprofit organization they and Sloan had supported as donors: Snowline in El Dorado County.

“We didn’t realize Snowline provided palliative care,” says Blue Tierney. “Everyone here thinks of it as hospice.”

Palliative care’s identity problem is why Snowline has stopped using “hospice” in its name and why its medical director, Jeanine Ellinwood, prefers to call it “supportive” care.

Ellinwood began working in hospice in 1998, “before palliative care had branched into its own entity,” she says. Then, in 2010, a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that for patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer, early palliative care led to significant improvements in quality of life, as well as longer survival. “That got attention from the medical profession,” Ellinwood says.

Ellinwood and Enguídanos have collaborated on palliative care studies that focus on expanding access to care and understanding challenges in accessing care from multiple perspectives.

360 Degrees of Support Palliative care can provide a wide range of services and support, including expert pain management, medication reminders, and wound and oxygen care. It can also offer help with medical equipment, insurance paperwork, care planning, food and housing, everyday chores that have become difficult to manage, like trash collection — even spiritual issues.

Ellinwood recalls one patient in her mid-50s with lung cancer whose primary care doctor had labeled her “noncompliant.” Her Snowline palliative care team discovered she was worried — about eviction because her medical equipment blocked her apartment building’s hallway, and about her 14-year-son’s reaction to her illness.

The team nurse spoke with the landlord about allowing the equipment, while the social worker arranged for additional school support. The patient could then focus on healing. “We walk alongside each patient whatever their goals,” says Ellinwood.

She believes acceptance of palliative care has grown in the past several years. “Physicians are starting to have a better understanding,” she says. “Things are changing, but slowly.”

For Enguídanos, that progress has been too slow.

Unlike hospice, home-based palliative care is still not a Medicare benefit and “not broadly provided across the country,” she says. In 2018, the state of California enacted Senate Bill 1004, which mandates that providers

of Medi-Cal (the state’s Medicaid health care program) offer team-based, coordinated palliative care to eligible patients with serious illnesses.

However, in a 2020 study, Enguídanos, Hoe and others characterized the response from primary care physicians to the expanded coverage as “underwhelming.” In the two years following enactment of SB 1004, fewer than 1% of all Medi-Cal patients were enrolled in home- and community-based palliative care programs. Most doctors surveyed had not even heard of the coverage.

Also discouraging: Anecdotal reports suggest that of the Medi-Cal patients who were referred to home-based palliative care, less than half enrolled.

What prevents physicians and patients from signing up for services that have been proven to increase comfort and quality of life? In multiple studies, Enguídanos’ team has analyzed possible barriers from every angle — providers, patients and caregivers.

Discomfort, Worry and Resistance One explanation: Many people shy away from conversations about illness, dying and end of life — “and that includes physicians,” says Hoe. “Our surveys have found many doctors are not comfortable talking about the issue or they wait for patients to bring it up.”

Often, physicians aren’t sure how to explain palliative care. Some interpret it as a failure of their own treatment plans.

Patients have their own uncertainties. “They oftentimes don’t know what palliative care is or feel they are not sick enough,” says Enguídanos. “Or they are already so overwhelmed by their health issues and related appointments, they don’t understand the value of having another team of providers managing their care.”

In addition, some patients don’t want strangers in their homes or, depending on their immigration status, may worry about “authorities” stepping in.

Complicating this picture are cultural differences. In some languages, there is no direct translation for “palliative care,” or the term carries negative connotations.

In Mandarin, for example, “palliative” translates as “last-minute care” or “waiting for death.”

For patients struggling with financial, food and/or housing instability, having palliative care’s “extra level of support” — even if covered by insurance — may not be the highest priority. “They are dealing with 101 other things and may not know how to ask for help or even what to ask for,” says Enguídanos. In a 2022 study, her team evaluated ways to increase palliative care to low-income patients in California, concluding that culturally sensitive education is essential.

A Team Takes Charge Sloan’s cancer spread to her abdomen, and she opted for chemotherapy. The first round had little effect, and she decided to try a second. She became so dizzy, she couldn’t get out of bed and suffered another bad fall. At that point, “there were just too many people involved in her care,” says Blue Tierney. “We needed help. We needed structure.”

The Snowline team stepped in, assisting with insurance paperwork and care decisions. Nurse practitioner Debbie Cheevers took the lead in adjusting Sloan’s pain meds. “Sometimes, families don’t know what to ask for.

We help them navigate and identify their goals,” says Cheevers.

Lydia Sloan and her family, including Tierney’s siblings, Catherine and David, knew what they wanted: guidance. Sloan was able to call Snowline with her own questions. “I also had someone I could talk to anytime,” says Tierney. “With so much knowledge on the team, there is information and emotional support.”

When the time came for Sloan to enter hospice care, that transition was easier. On June 8, 2023, she died quietly in her sleep.

Going forward, Enguídanos and her team are looking at the impact of race on access to palliative care, along with the effectiveness of video as an educational tool.

Another line of inquiry is whether enrollment would grow if physicians and nurses provided patients with a “warm handoff” to a palliative care social worker instead of a less personal referral.

There are positive developments on the horizon.

Hawaii is close to following California’s example and approving Medicaid reimbursements for palliative care.

A growing number of insurers, health plans and medical groups offer the care, and home-based palliative care is gaining ground. “It’s exciting to see some of our early work adapted into standard practice after all this time,” says Enguídanos, “especially considering the extensive evidence of the value of this service to patients and their family members.”

One caregiver emphatically agrees. As Tierney says: “Palliative care is a public health necessity.”

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USC Leonard Davis PhD alumni discuss how their experiences at USC have prepared them to be leaders in the field.

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Photo: credit info

Passion, Hard Work & Determination

SHELBY BACHMAN, PHD

Photo: Courtesy of Shelby Bachman

Developing Tech to Track Health Changes

Shelby Bachman knew early on she wanted to study the brain, aging and memory. Her interest arose from having a grandfather with Alzheimer’s disease and an early introduction to neuroanatomy while still in high school.

Bachman’s undergraduate and graduate education focused deeply on these topics, and she now works for a biotech company called VivoSense. In her role, she uses wearable sensor data to develop digital measures of clinical changes that occur due to disease.

As a neuroscience major at USC, Bachman discovered the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology in her junior year. She worked as a research assistant in the lab of Mara Mather, professor of gerontology, psychology and biomedical engineering.

“Working in Dr. Mather’s lab was an invaluable experience,” Bachman says. “The projects I assisted with involved running behavioral experiments with younger and older adults. I learned how to analyze data and put together a story to answer a research question.”

After graduating, Bachman realized that her real passion was research, so she enrolled in a master’s program at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.

Coincidentally, Mather had just finished a sabbatical at Berlin’s prestigious Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

Bachman ended up collaborating with Mather at the Max Planck Institute. Their work focused on a brain region called the locus coeruleus that lies deep in the subcortex. Scientists think the locus coeruleus is important for cognitive function in aging and Alzheimer’s disease.

This project led Bachman back to the USC Leonard Davis School to pursue a PhD in Mather’s lab.

In completing the diverse coursework available through the PhD program, Bachman gained a multidisciplinary perspective of aging and strong data-science skills. Her dissertation work involved a range of research projects. For one project, she conducted a behavioral experiment to measure how cognitive performance changed after briefly squeezing a therapy ball. The study’s results showed that a short period of isometric exercise improved working memory performance in both older and younger participants.

She also participated in a labwide study examining the effects of slow-paced breathing on the sympathetic nervous system in younger and older adults. Slowpaced breathing increases heart rate variability, which is important for emotional well-being and stress management. For this study, Bachman collected and analyzed large amounts of brain-imaging data and prepared several publications.

“My PhD research was a full-spectrum experience,” says Bachman. “I learned how to manage a project, including recruiting participants and overseeing a team of research assistants. I gained experience in collecting and analyzing large sets of physiological and brain-imaging data. I also gained experience publishing my results and presenting to very different audiences.”

Bachman completed her PhD in May 2022 and started working at VivoSense as a research scientist shortly after. VivoSense develops digital measures from wearable sensor data for use in clinical trials.

Bachman’s work builds upon her PhD research measuring physiological signals. “My work centers around the development of digital clinical measures for people with Alzheimer’s and cancer,” she says. “We are excited about the possibility of using a wearable accelerometer to capture functional changes. An accelerometer measures aspects of gait and mobility such as steps, walking speed and stride length.”

Wearables generate large data sets. The data-science skills Bachman developed at USC are helping her analyze and interpret this data. She’s also thinking about her work from policy, insurance and population-level perspectives. Bachman credits the multidisciplinary training she received at the USC Leonard Davis School for this broad view.

Looking to the future, Bachman sees the potential of wearables and other types of sensors to help solve some of the challenges of aging. “I’m excited to be contributing my background to this work and seeing where the digital health field goes,” she says.

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50 | VITALITY

NICHOLE LIGHTHALL, PHD

Photo: Kyle Martin/UCF Marketing & Communications

Protecting Older Adults From Fraud Nichole Lighthall earned her PhD from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology in 2012. She’s now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida. In her view, research is an opportunity to solve problems and make the world a better place.

Indeed, her current work on the effects of aging on decision-making aims to protect older adults from scams.

According to the FBI’s annual Elder Fraud Report, more than 92,000 victims reported losses totaling $1.7 billion in 2021. This amount is likely just a fraction of the actual losses, since many cases of fraud and abuse go unreported.

Lighthall teaches undergraduate and graduate classes at UCF and runs her own lab. Her research builds upon her previous work in decision-making at the USC Leonard Davis School and as a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University.

One of Lighthall’s current projects at UCF is identifying predictors of vulnerability to scams and fraud. Her team is developing a screening tool to help health care providers identify older adults at higher risk of getting scammed.

“You might think cognition and markers of decisionmaking would be the top predictors of risk,” Lighthall says. “But it’s more complex than that. Some older adults know their children are taking advantage of them but don’t stop it from happening. Others may be experiencing chronic pain or illness that makes them dependent on the person stealing from them. Our multidisciplinary team is looking at this problem from all angles.”

At the USC Leonard Davis School, Lighthall’s coursework encompassed the whole picture of aging and included topics such as public policy, sociology, biology, psychology and epidemiology. During classes, weekly meetings and seminars, she interacted with a wide range of people with diverse interests in aging.

For several years, Lighthall received support from a T32 training grant under the supervision of University Professor Eileen Crimmins. “The training program was transformative,” Lighthall says. “As fellows, we learned together and shared our experiences. The grant also provided funding so I could focus on research instead of working as a teaching assistant.”

With her principal advisor, Professor Mara Mather, Lighthall studied how short-term stress affected learning and decision-making.

“You can imagine the evolutionary benefit of stress when it causes you to pay attention to important information in your environment,” Lighthall says. “This mechanism helps you avoid potentially harmful experiences and make rewarding choices in the future.” Lighthall and Mather also studied gender and age differences in decision-making under stress.

In addition to Mather and Crimmins, Lighthall found other mentors at the USC Leonard Davis School. Professor Elizabeth Zelinski shared Lighthall’s interest in cognitive psychology and provided keen guidance when she started thinking about her future. University Professor Caleb Finch was also a role model for Lighthall for his long and productive career.

Even years later, Lighthall keeps in touch with her USC Leonard Davis School colleagues. “These are people I’ve built strong bonds with,” she says. “I lean on them as part of my professional network and as my sounding board for professional issues.”

For Lighthall, following one’s passion is the key to sustaining a long career. As a first-generation undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, Lighthall discovered a keen interest in psychology.

That interest led to a summer research fellowship at Stanford University to study stress as a risk factor for age-related cognitive decline, which then led her to Mather at the USC Leonard Davis School. As Lighthall completed her PhD, a love of research and mentoring students inspired her to pursue an academic path.

Recently, Lighthall received an invitation to join the Global Young Academy (GYA), an organization that aims to empower young scientists. During her five-year GYA term, she will be working in multidisciplinary and multinational teams to address scientific and societal problems.

Throughout her education and career, Lighthall has taken a problem-focused approach. “Helping people and seeing the positive outcomes of my work is very satisfying,” she says.

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AMIN HAGHANI, PHD

Photo: Natalie Avunjian

Unlocking the Cellular Processes of Aging

Amin Haghani started researching viruses in his home country of Iran more than 15 years ago. He already had a doctor of veterinary medicine degree, but his desire to focus on research led him down a different academic path and, eventually, to the U.S. “When I came here, I wasn’t aware of the field of gerontology,” Haghani says. “My goal was to obtain a PhD and become a researcher.” Finding the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology helped Haghani discover his passion and land a senior role at Altos Labs, a state-ofthe-art biotechnology company. Seeded with more than $3 billion, Altos has an ambitious goal of reversing aging at the cellular level.

Haghani left Iran in 2013 to study molecular biology at Universiti Putra Malaysia. There, he had the opportunity to study and publish papers on various viruses. He then moved to the U.S. after graduating with a master’s degree.

“Instead of enrolling in a PhD program right away, I decided to work in a lab first,” Haghani says. “I applied for several positions, including one with University Professor Caleb Finch at the USC Leonard Davis School.”

Finch responded right away. He was impressed with Haghani’s résumé and research experience. Within two weeks, Haghani was working in the lab as a research technician.

“Dr. Finch knew I wanted to pursue a PhD, so he trusted me to work on many projects,” Haghani says.

One of the projects that would carry over into his own PhD work was investigating the toxicity of air pollution on the brain.

It didn’t take long for Haghani to realize he was in the right place. After 10 months as a research technician, he applied for and was accepted to the PhD program in Biology of Aging.

A prolific researcher during his PhD completion, Haghani explored different aspects of air pollution in Finch’s lab and with other collaborators. These projects included: • Identifying the inflammatory pathways that mediate the effects of air pollution on the brain.

• Collaborating with Professor Sean Curran to develop a model of air pollution toxicity in the worm C. elegans.

• Partnering with UCLA Professor Steve Horvath to investigate DNA methylation in response to air pollution.

Using his biostatistics skills, Haghani also participated in an epidemiological study with University Professor Eileen Crimmins. The study measured the effects of smoking on health outcomes in older women and led to publication in PLOS ONE. In total, Haghani published more than 10 papers while pursuing his PhD, which he completed in May 2020.

“USC is such a collaborative place,” Haghani says.

“When I reached out to professors with ideas, they were always responsive and willing to work together.”

His research with Horvath led to a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA and his new position as a senior scientist at Altos. The company’s mission is to reverse disease, injury and disabilities that occur throughout life by restoring cell health and resilience.

Haghani’s work looks at how epigenetic changes to DNA (those that regulate gene expression without altering DNA sequences) affect aging. DNA methylation is a type of epigenetic change that occurs with age and in response to physiological and environmental stress.

Haghani measures DNA methylation across over 300 mammalian species to help identify shared epigenetic biomarkers of aging. His and his Altos Labs colleagues’ work in finding molecular mechanisms of cellular damage will hopefully lead to advances in longevity and resilience and the development of anti-aging treatments.

He says the startup culture moves quickly, so it’s hard to predict where things will be in a few years. A return to an academic setting someday is not out of the question.

And Haghani is still in contact with Finch and others at USC. “Dr. Finch and I meet for lunch every few months to catch up and share ideas,” he says. “I also recently attended an alumni dinner and saw many of my former professors and colleagues. I respect them so much and see them as friends.”

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NOTES NEW HEIGHTS —

USC Leonard Davis Student Climbs Half Dome With Her 93-Year-Old Grandfather

by Orli Belman

“What I would encourage anyone to do, whatever their limitations or handicaps, [is] to do what you can do.”

— Everett Kalin

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Everett Kalin has long been an inspiration to his granddaughter Sidney, a sophomore human development and aging major at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and an avid hiker and adventurer.

And it is no wonder why.

At age 92, Everett jumped out of a plane, fulfilling his dream of skydiving. The next item on his bucket list: scaling Yosemite National Park’s iconic Half Dome, a challenging journey up steep granite that the U.S. National Park Service warns is arduous and not to be attempted by anyone unprepared or out of shape.

That’s not Everett. To get ready for the 21.5-mile-roundtrip hike, he climbed all 16 flights of stairs in his retirement community building multiple times a day and walked several miles around a lake near his home five times a week.

For this quest, Sidney, 19, and her father, Jon, 57, joined him.

Their July 2023 trip made national news and turned fellow hikers into a traveling fan club as the trigenerational trio made their way up the nearly 9,000-foot dome. Rangers let the other climbers on the route know that Everett, at 93, was possibly the oldest person ever to summit.

“When we finally got up to the top, there was a huge cheering section there that were yelling for Jon and Sidney and me, and that felt very good,” he said.

But it is granddaughter Sidney who is perhaps his biggest fan. Her close relationships with her Opa Everett and her other grandparents is what inspired her to pursue a degree in gerontology — a field she didn’t even know existed until she came across a TikTok about the USC program.

Now, she and Everett are social media stars — the video she posted of their climb went viral, amassing more than 16 million views. Their endeavor showcases the power of intergenerational bonds and how much younger generations can learn from Everett and the way he approaches growing older.

“He keeps creating new experiences and reasons to keep pushing,” said Sidney. “I think that’s really important for anyone, to set goals and keep going after them to give yourself a purpose.”

Everett doesn’t see himself as an outlier.

He says his fellow senior-living community residents are always going to concerts, serving on committees or traveling to the city, and he describes an engaged and vibrant lifestyle that is anything but retiring.

“It’s just a treat to experience a bunch of people who feel glad they’re here and eager to try this or to try that,” he said. “And that’s what I would encourage anyone to do, whatever their limitations or handicaps, to do what you can do.”

Photo: Courtesy of Sidney Kalin

Sidney, Everett, and Jon Kalin atop Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. At 93, Everett Kalin is thought to be the oldest person ever to reach the summit.

Everett had his own role model who inspired his love of adventure: his mother.

Just a few years before she passed away at 99, she climbed aboard a pontoon boat in Canada to see migrating whales.

There’s still time for Everett. But for now, he’s content to stay home for a while, where he lives with his wife of 64 years, Clara.

Sidney, who plans to become a geriatrician, hopes they can next plan a trip to Europe and spend a month hiking the 620-mile-long Camino de Santiago in Spain.

That shouldn’t be a problem for Everett.

After all, his motto is “Keep on truckin’.”

Now that he’s back at sea level, he says the journey up Half Dome wasn’t too hard. He initially had some trouble ascending the

challenging, cable-free subdome section — imagine scaling a super-steep, slick granite ramp. Rather than standing upright, he tried to move forward using his hands and knees.

This caused some scrapes and some worry.

“At that point, we were like, if he can’t figure out how to walk up this section, then he’s not going to be able to make it,” said Sidney.

But he did make it, and his approach to overcoming that challenge is one we all can learn from.

“I figured out it is easier if you just lean forward,” he said.

A lesson for climbing and a lesson for life.

WINTER 2023-2024 | 55

NOTES

Anita and William Jeung, both graduates of the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, recently donated via their estate a very generous gift to support biology of aging research in women.

Anita initially pursued her dream of becoming a doctor by attending medical school at Tulane University. However, her plans changed due to her mother’s untimely death. She eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue pharmacy school at the University of Southern California while caring for her father and younger siblings.

At USC, she met her husband, William (Bill), who was studying on the GI Bill. They both obtained their degrees in pharmacy, Bill a bachelor of science in 1952 and Anita a doctorate in 1954. Bill enlisted and served in the Army Air Corps Reserve during World War II, where he served as a mechanic for Tex Rankin, a well-known stunt pilot who taught flight training to pilots.

A dedicated pharmacist for over 30 years, Bill began his career in Hollywood, working at the famous Schwab’s Pharmacy, where actress Lana Turner was discovered. His customers included other stars such as Jimmy Durante, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, and Cyd Charisse.

After getting her pharmacy license, Anita worked at Good Hope Clinic and later side by side with Bill at Glenhurst Pharmacy, an independent drug store they owned and operated for over 20 years in L.A.’s Atwater Village district.

Anita and Bill celebrated over 60 years of marriage together and both lived to be nearly 100 years old. They were interested in healthy aging and made great efforts to maintain their health.

Anita and Bill both had life-long interests in health sciences and created a charitable trust whose beneficiaries are all in the health field, focusing on heart issues, health care and aging research.

If you have an interest in supporting biology of aging research, please contact David Eshaghpour at (213) 740-1360.

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Photo: Courtesy of Jeung family

Jeung Family Donates Estate Gift to Support Biology of Aging Research in Women

Anonymous Gift Advances Alzheimer’s Research An anonymous family donated $200,000 over a couple of years to support the research efforts of Associate Professor Andrei Irimia after hearing him present his work on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its link to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life.

The funds were used to purchase specialized computing equipment capable of detecting brain changes that are not easily identifiable by humans. Irimia intends to use this equipment to gain a better understanding of how early changes in brain structure during middle age can predict the risk of Alzheimer’s onset several decades later. His research, which relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning, involves analyzing over 500,000 sites in the human genome to identify genetic risk factors in middle-aged individuals.

“This powerful hardware has the potential to allow clinicians to better identify who is most at risk for Alzheimer’s,” said Irimia. “I am grateful for this critical support that advances our ability to develop tailored monitoring, preventive interventions and, eventually, treatment for this devastating disease.”

Associate Professor Andrei Irimia

SCHOLARS & BENEFACTORS —

“We are developing the future leadership of the senior care industry. ... You are part of a great institution and a great mission.”

Photos: Stephanie Kleinman, Steve Cohn

— Mercedes Kerr, president of Belmont Village Senior Living and member of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology Board of Councilors, who spoke at the school’s annual Scholars and Benefactors Luncheon on Oct. 26, 2023.

“I went from a daughter and best friend to my dad’s primary caretaker. ...

I know this work will eventually help other people’s parents.”

— Cassie McGill, Biology of Aging PhD candidate, who delivered the event’s student keynote speech and spoke about the importance of student support and how her father’s dementia diagnosis inspired her research.

WINTER 2023-2024 | 57

Photo: Courtesy of Shannon family

IN MEMORIAM

The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology mourns George Shannon, instructional associate professor and holder of the Kevin Xu Chair in Gerontology, who passed away on March 1, 2023 at age 84. Shannon became a gerontology educator and researcher at the age of 64 after a decadeslong career as an actor. “The best teachers are born actors,” Shannon once said. “They love being in front of a group. They learn their material, and they enjoy communicating.”

13 | VITALITY

The Dean’s Circle When you donate to the USC Leonard Davis School, you partner with us in the pursuit of excellence. Your support allows students to explore and engage further in their studies, advances our work to provide outreach and advocacy for older adults, and helps provide faculty scientists with the best resources to conduct groundbreaking research. Please show your commitment to our students and mission by making a gift of $500 or

more to the USC Leonard Davis School, and join the Dean’s Circle today.

Photo: Stephanie Kleinman

THANK YOU AND FIGHT ON!

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