I am a Puerto Rican biologist studying the evolution of exceptional longevity and healthspan in animals such as bats and whales. I employ a “farm-to-table” genomics approach that unites fieldwork, cellular and molecular biology, and functional population-scale genomics to tackle questions in aging across all levels of life. In addition to my work in aging, I strive to eliminate all barriers to people’s success in STEM, and to democratize access to science through outreach and training programs.
Pedagogy and inclusivity are at the heart of my academic program. Science only has meaning when its fruits are widely and openly shared with all; furthermore, science is only beneficial and benevolent when its fruits are available equally to all. As such, I am always seeking more opportunities to reach out and promote STEM to any and all groups and identities!
PhD in Human Genetics
University of California, Berkeley
B.Sc. in Biology - Molecular Genetics
University of Rochester
B.a. in Chemistry
University of Rochester
Aging is one of the most ubiquitous and stunning rules of life, affecting all levels of biological organization across the tree of life. The incredible range of lifespans seen across vertebrates provides a rich source for the discovery of new pathways and drug targets for aging-associated diseases including cancer, sarcopenia, and dementia. My work focuses on tackling interdisciplinary questions aging with equally interdisciplinary approaches, ranging from cellular and molecular biology to comparative evolutionary genomics and population genetics.
I study the evolution of gene regulatory networks governing longevity-associated traits in extraordinarily long-lived animals to identify new therapeutic pathways for aging-related disease. This involves a combination of in vitro, ex vivo, and in sillico approaches made possible by combining fieldwork, cellular and molecular biology, and functional genomics to enable studies that would be impossible in vivo. This system enables us to not only identify genes and regulatory pathways associated with the evolution of increased or decreased longevity; but also understand how the mechanisms behind these findings in a native context.
I am always looking for collaborators, whether its to study a specific facet of aging in bats or whales, or to expand our horizons to new systems - just reach out!
There are always some big papers which one cites left and right, because they’ve generated a very important dataset, or have a very succinct paper. Here, I will be using R to improve upon these original graphs, and also provide an interactive view of them.
While aging is an inevitable process for most species, there is an incredible diversity of lifespans throughout the Tree of Life, ranging from a few days to several millenia. For researchers interested in the fundamental biology behind aging, seeing what aspects of an organism’s biology correlate to lifespan is an important first step on the path to finding concrete explanations
behind their longevity.
For example, in 1975, Dr. Richard Peto published a paper where he established that the different sizes and lifespans of humans and mice didn’t really relate to their respective cancer rates. This was described as Peto’s Paradox, because the expectation was originally that over a lifetime, every cell will accumulate mutations that could eventually cause it to become cancerous; and if an animal had more cells, then this lifetime risk of cancer would only increase further. In fact, it turns out that there
is no relationship between body size, lifespan, and cancer, which is the fact that underlies the focus of my own research!
As we will explore in this section, this paradox is further complicated by another unexpected relationship: animals that are larger tend to also live longer.
