Vadim Gladyshev

At a glance

• Professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and one of the leading researchers on the biology of ageing.
• First became known for his work on selenium and selenoproteins: he mapped the full human ‘selenoproteome’.
• Studies why some species live far longer than others, including genome work on the naked mole-rat and other long-lived animals.
• His lab develops biomarkers of ageing, such as epigenetic clocks, and showed in 2023 that biological age rises temporarily during severe stress and falls again with recovery.
• Received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2013 and studies how rejuvenation can be measured — and perhaps achieved — while scrutinising what such claims really mean.
• He publishes widely with other teams on interventions that extend lifespan in animals, such as calorie restriction and rapamycin, and looks for their shared molecular signatures.
• Takeaway: biological-age tests are still mainly research tools; a single measurement says little, especially right after illness or stress.