Jonathan Riggs, Author at USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology

Nov 28

Fighting On!

By Jonathan Riggs Featured, Students

The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology took center stage at the 65th annual scientific meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), held this year in San Diego.

As always, the field’s preeminent conference provided multiple opportunities for USC Leonard Davis students, faculty and alumni to shine, as well as for the School’s popular reception to anchor the social and networking side of the event.

“I was so proud to see USC represented so strongly all over GSA,” said Emily Nabors, program coordinator and evaluator for the School’s Fall Prevention Center of Excellence. “It’s so inspiring to see the breadth and depth of the work done at USC while also gaining new insight into what our colleagues around the world are doing.”

Under the umbrella of GSA’s 2012 theme, “Charting New Frontiers in Aging,” USC Leonard Davis School faculty covered a variety of topics, including Tuck Finch on Alzheimer’s disease, Elizabeth Zelinski on gerontechnology, Bob Knight on psychological assessment and interventions, Kate Wilber on elder abuse prevention and Tara Gruenewald on the intersection of socioeconomic and physical health. USC Leonard Davis doctoral students were also well represented among the experts, including Joohong Min on Korean Baby Boomers, Shoshana Hindin on aging’s effect on language acquisition, Shieva Davarian on the health of older Japanese adults and Alison Balbag on music as preventative dementia therapy.

Trojans had much to celebrate, and attendees to the USC Leonard Davis School reception offered a champagne toast to the School’s Eileen Crimmins, who was not only inducted into the Institute of Medicine but also won GSA’s 2012 Robert W. Kleemeier Award for her outstanding research. Another reason to celebrate was the fact that the School is on the cusp of its twentieth anniversary bestowing PhDs in gerontology, with the world’s first going to Valentina Villa in 1993.

“It was really wonderful to see such ‘old’ friends and to meet graduates of later cohorts,” said Sandy Reynolds of the University of South Florida. “As a USC Leonard Davis School PhD alum, what a joy to be able to celebrate the ongoing success of our PhD program in a year where we also celebrate Eileen Crimmins, since she has had such an important role in the success of the program.”

Along with the aforementioned “old” friends, Trojans were equally enthusiastic to welcome and rally behind newer friends, especially Pinchas Cohen, who was delighted to attend his first GSA as dean of the USC Leonard Davis School.

“It is a great honor to be among such world-class colleagues and friends who share our dream of a better quality of life for every aging person,” Cohen said. “I am proud of all of our extremely talented Trojans, near and far, who work every day to bring this dream one step closer to reality.”

Click here for a complete list of all programs, presentations and posters.

Nov 14

What’s Your Number?

By Jonathan Riggs Featured

Sorry Los Angeles—you lost to Provo-Orem, Utah (#1), Des Moines, IA (#6) and Toledo, Ohio (#8). In the first-ever “Best Cities for Successful Aging” ranking report, the City of Angels finished a less-than-heavenly #30.

Compiled by the Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, the report made waves around the country at every professional level, sending many of the nation’s mayors and civic committees scrambling to figure out ways to make their cities more senior-friendly.

Paul H. Irving, senior managing director and chief operating officer of the Milken Institute, discussed the study’s impetus, goals and impact with members of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology in a presentation entitled “The Aging Opportunity: Rethinking the Demographic Shift.”

“Our theory of the world is you have to do really good data-driven work and you have to find a way to connect it to public policy and leadership,” he said. “For many of the people sitting in this audience: this will affect our lives and the lives of your peers around the world.”

After describing the enormous aging-related challenges facing the United States and world, including projected explosions in the number of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and depression, Irving explained that part of the problem is that aging is seen as a negative, taboo topic, that receives less funding, awareness and research than it deserves.

“People don’t like to talk about aging. Maybe it’s our own fear of hair loss or wrinkles or death, but it needs to be done. I think each one of you can have a hand in doing that,” he said. “As members of a unique community: I would challenge you to think about how frame your work and your discussions around issues related to aging.”

Using statistics that include costs of living, employment growth and rate, crime, weather and the number of health professionals in the ranking system, Irving explained that the Milken Institute’s goal in creating this report was to provide a data-driven resource that could help spark discussions and inspire positive changes.

Fielding questions from audience members about the methodology, scope and ramifications of the study, Irving closed by thanking the USC Leonard Davis School and its students and faculty for helping reimagine and redefine what it means to age, to retire and to embark on a second career—a feeling that seemed mutual.

“Paul stands for everything we believe in at the USC Leonard Davis School,” said USC Leonard Davis School dean Pinchas Cohen, MD “This index is a total game changer and should be something people take a serious look at.”

To view the study, visit http://successfulaging.milkeninstitute.org/.

Nov 14

USC Davis Postdoc Links Air Pollutants to Diminished Senior Brain Function

By Jonathan Riggs Diversity, Featured, Student Profile

At first, USC’s large, interdisciplinary series of studies into air pollution and brain health seemed outside the wheelhouse of USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology postdoc Jennifer Ailshire, a sociologist and demographer.

After leading researcher Caleb E. Finch tapped her to contribute to the massive project, however, she found an unexpected and extremely valuable niche. By conducting the first study to show how exposure to air pollution influences cognitive function in a national sample of older men and women, Ailshire found that living in areas of high air pollution is indeed an environmental risk to seniors’ brain health.

“The Ailshire study shows the unexpectedly adverse effects of air pollutants on brain function in US elderly,” said Finch, a University Professor and holder of the ARCO/William F. Kieschnick Chair in the Neurobiology of Aging at the USC Leonard Davis School. “Her multidisciplinary approach is a model for analyzing the complex interactions of location and outcomes of aging.”

“This is a new area of research for me, so having a group of scholars with such diversity of expertise to learn from has been tremendously helpful,” Ailshire said. “I credit Dr. Finch for his vision in creating such a vibrant and diverse community of scholars organized around an issue that is of great interest not only to researchers but also to policy makers and the public.”

Along with additional papers on longevity factors and financial health, Ailshire presented her findings at a poster session at the 65^th annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) in San Diego, noting that her findings are especially pertinent to Southern California.

“I hope this research draws more attention to the adverse effects of air pollution on population health, and particularly the health of older adults,” she said. “This issue is especially relevant for the Los Angeles area where pollution levels are so high, far above national levels and EPA standards, and the population of older adults is growing so rapidly.”

Besides providing a valuable public health service, Ailshire’s study also highlights how gerontological research encompasses many fields and impacts every living—and therefore aging—person.

“Jennifer is very wise to have broadened her scope and to draw on the multidisciplinary resources here at USC,” said Eileen Crimmins, the USC Leonard Davis School AARP Chair holder and Ailshire’s preceptor. “What she has found has important implications for all of us.”

Nov 08

Pike promoted to full professor

By Jonathan Riggs Featured

Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Leonard Davis School, announced this week that longtime researcher Christian Pike, PhD, was promoted from associate to full professor.

A biogerontologist with a joint appointment in neuroscience, Pike focuses his research on Alzheimer’s disease, specifically the role sex steroid hormones play. Pike has made national headlines for his research into the effects of testosterone and estrogen during the aging process.

“Christian Pike’s visionary research is an invaluable resource not just for our School and his colleagues, but also for all aging people,” said Cohen. “We are lucky to have him and proud of the groundbreaking work he has done and will continue to do here.”

Nov 08

Student Wins Award for Groundbreaking Paper on Minority End-of-Life Pain Management

By Jonathan Riggs Caregiving, Featured, Honors and Awards, Student Profile

USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology doctoral student Jeff Laguna (Photo/Trevor Nelson)

End-of-life pain is poorly managed across the board, but why, even with palliative care efforts, do minorities suffer disproportionately?

Tackling what he calls the first study to investigate pain experiences among Whites, Blacks and Latinos following inpatient palliative care (IPC) consults, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology doctoral student Jeff Laguna won the Gerontological Society of America’s Elaine M. Brody Award, given for excellence in research.

Co-authored with Rebecca Goldstein, MD, and USC Leonard Davis School Hanson Family Trust Assistant Professor of Gerontology Susan Enguídanos, PhD, MPH, the study was funded by the Archstone Foundation, examining 484 seriously ill patients and how their racial/ethnic differences impacted their end-of-life pain.

“We found something very interesting. Although palliative care did a great job at reducing pain among a racially/ethnically diverse patient population, it seems that Latinos were still more likely to report pain at hospital discharge,” Laguna said. “Previous research suggests a couple possible explanations, but a more detailed study will be needed to understand why Latinos appear to respond differently.”

Some of the existing explanations include the potential for Latinos to view end-of-life pain as a time of necessary and even welcome personal and/or spiritual cleansing, highlighting Laguna’s findings that IPC interventions may need to increase cultural sensitivity. He also finds that this increased awareness will inform future policy changes, which could help revolutionize the way we think about end-of-life care.

“After decades of recognizing the existence of ethnic disparities in health care access and health outcomes, we are continuing to see these patterns today. Illuminating these disparities is a first step to understanding and overcoming them,” Enguídanos said. “Jeff’s commitment to investigating disparities and improving equitable quality of care is commendable and critical.”

“For me, this award is the culmination of a lot of hard work, as I had to travel halfway across the country to master the analyses performed in this study,” Laguna said. “It is my hope that this study opens the door for a more detailed investigation. While this is the first step of many, I believe that it is an important step.”

Oct 30

Bacteria Boy Band

By Jonathan Riggs Featured

USC’s 2012 iGEM Team: (l to r) Rebecca Gao, Eric Siryj, Luke Quinto, Megan Bernstein, Sean Curran, Percy Genyk, Stephan Genyk, Ellen Park and Rachel Koha

Singing bacteria—a veritable Menudo made up of microorganisms—was the latest synthetic biology brainchild of USC’s International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) team.

Advised by the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology assistant professor Sean Curran and grad student Percy Genyk, the team consisted of USC undergrads Megan Bernstein, Rachel Kohan, Ellen Park, Stephan Genyk, Eric Siryj, Luke Quinto and Rebecca Gao.

“From beginning to end, the team was committed—staying past midnight was very common,” said member Stephan Genyk. “I am proud of the many hours and long nights we put into this project, and that we were able to create an intricate system that can be used in many other fields of science.”

Building on last year’s initial success, where the USC iGEM team was able to instigate a “Trojan horse” self-destruction mechanism in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, this year’s iGEM team won a gold medal at the iGEM Regional Jamboree: Americas West in Palo Alto, CA for their project, “E. musici.”

“It is great to see that in the few short years since it was founded, the USC iGEM team won the gold medal,” said Yannis Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. “This success demonstrates the caliber of our undergraduate students in biochemical engineering and the leadership of its faculty advisor Sean Curran.”

Working with the infamous E. coli, the team manipulated the genetic factors responsible for the movement of the bacteria’s whip-like flagella. By controlling the rotation and frequency of the flagella under a variety of conditions, including pH, temperature and salt/nitrate concentration, the team were able to translate these specific changes into an audible range.

In effect: for the first time in history, bacteria were able to “talk” directly to scientists, providing feedback about their health and hunger levels, which could prove invaluable in any laboratory setting.

“The creativity, dedication and talent on display with this team is awe-inspiring,” said Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “Seeing rising young USC scientists with such passion and innovation is a testament to the strength of the university and the future of the field.”

On a more lighthearted level, the team’s project also translated into an ability to potentially create an E. coli keyboard, with each note represented by a plate of bacteria producing a specific frequency.

While the prospect of bacteria Bieber covers may simultaneously charm and terrify, the team prided itself on spanning the divide between the arts and science while increasing public awareness of the limitless potential of bioengineering. In fact, they also produced an outreach video and social media initiative exploring people’s misconceptions of synthetic biology while explaining some of its basic concepts and applications.

“iGEM presents the perfect opportunity to combine biology, engineering, computer science, ethics and public relations in the cutting edge field of synthetic biology,” said Rebecca Gao. “We all wanted to pull something with the ‘wow,’ double-take factor and it was amazing to see our crazy, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if?’ questions actually manifest themselves.”

“Being a part of the iGEM team this year was one of my most rewarding experiences here at USC. I got to learn hands-on bench science and gain research experience,” said Megan Bernstein. “Sometimes the best way to really learn is to do something, and participating in an iGEM project is an amazing example of that.”

“This type of interdisciplinary, discovery-based learning is fundamental to training our undergraduates to be leaders in the fields of tomorrow,” said Steve Kay, dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “The USC Dornsife community is incredibly proud of this trailblazing team of scholars.”

While the team’s praise from the students for advisors Curran and Percy Genyk was universal, the feeling was definitely mutual.

“This year’s team was exceptionally enthusiastic and creative—no one had made E. coli sing before and it seemed impossible, so what better challenge?” said Curran, who also holds joint appointments in both USC Dornsife and the Keck School. “iGEM is a unique opportunity for undergrads to work on a project from development to presentation on a national stage, and I am so proud. I enjoyed working with this team so much and I can’t wait to see what they accomplish in the future!”

For more information on the team, their project and their videos, visit http://2012.igem.orgTeam:USC.

Oct 29

From The Netherlands to Los Angeles

By Jonathan Riggs Featured

From Oct. 8-12, 2012, the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology welcomed delegates from The School of Applied Gerontology at the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle, the Netherlands.

For one week, Hugo van den Beld, M.A., professor Carolien Smits, PhD and Annelies Harps-Timmerman, MSc, RN met with the School’s faculty, staff and students; toured Southern California senior services and explored opportunities for collaboration between the institutions.

“We wanted to help advance the situation of older adults in both countries, to enhance the profile and visibility of the two schools and to create new opportunities for education, research and community projects,” said van den Beld, a USC Leonard Davis alum.

Smits, too, had a very personal connection with the School: founding USC Leonard Davis dean James Birren, widely acknowledged as the father of the field, had visited her grad school class 30 years ago in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

“We had been told about his insights and the pioneering work of the Davis School, and his lecture impressed us a lot. What’s more, we were invited to join him for lunch. This was quite unexpected to us as modest students,” she said. “Jim Birren was sincerely interested in what students thought about gerontological matters. This taught me that no matter what age you are and how prestigious your work, you can always learn from and with students. I still try to practice this, thirty years onwards.”

Continuing this international collaboration was of utmost importance to the team, who faced challenges in their own country with many people unsure as to what gerontology even is.

“This was a fantastic opportunity for us to learn from a university where they have many years of experiences in the field we’re teaching,” Harps-Timmerman said. “Besides that, we were eager to explore options for Dutch students and lecturers to go abroad and learn from other cultures and countries. It’s a very powerful way to learn.”

As part of their visit, the trio also presented a special lecture, “Going Dutch: Aging in The Netherlands,” exploring innovations in senior housing, long term care and community services as well as holding a special workshop with members of the USC Leonard Davis School’s Fall Prevention Center of Excellence.

Building on the success of their visit, the team plans to expand their connection to the USC Leonard Davis School by looking into creating joint research and exchange programs and offering non-degree training opportunities.

“The response from our students and faculty to our Dutch visitors has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are excited to continue to explore the wonderful opportunities they have presented,” said Pinchas Cohen, MD, dean of the USC Leonard Davis School. “Gerontology is a truly global field of study and we are eager to promote the increased quality of life for older adults in every country.”

“Both of our Schools have a lot in common and this is a great beginning to a beautiful partnership,” van den Beld said. “We would like to thank everyone at the Davis School who has helped make this visit such a great one. We hope to see them again very soon, either in LA or in the Netherlands!”

Oct 16

Crimmins Elected to the Institute of Medicine

By Jonathan Riggs Featured

Eileen Crimmins, PhD, AARP Chair of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, capped off an impressive year with her election to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the world’s most prestigious honors in the fields of health and medicine.

Building on her momentum, which included being named the winner of the Gerontological Society of America’s Robert W. Kleemeier Award, Crimmins was recognized for her academic and professional excellence as one of the globe’s top biodemographers.

“We are enormously proud of Eileen’s well-deserved honor, which is a testament to her brilliance and unparalleled reputation,” said Pinchas Cohen, MD “Her awe-inspiring career has pushed forward the boundaries of science and human knowledge by leaps and bounds.”

“As an international leader in the demography of human aging, Dr. Crimmins is one of USC’s most distinguished multidisciplinary scientists,” said her colleague, Caleb Finch, PhD “She is fearless in tackling new technologies and is not just one of the pioneers of her field, but one of its most impressive visionaries and leaders.”

An expert on health, mortality and life expectancy, Crimmins is also the director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, director of the Multidisciplinary Training in Gerontology Program and a co-investigator of the Health and Retirement Study in the U.S.

“I am honored by this election,”Crimmins said. “It would not have been possible if I had not spent most of my career in the exciting multidisciplinary atmosphere at the Davis School of Gerontology at USC, a university that showed vision in providing this academic setting.”

The IOM is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which was originally chartered under then-president Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Membership reflects the pinnacle of professional achievement and commitment to service for those chosen.

Oct 05

Starvation-Induced Cellular Defense Mechanisms Shed Light on Lifespan Research

By Jonathan Riggs Featured, Lifespan Health, Mitochondria

New research by a team at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology into how organisms respond to lack of nutrition could have a far-reaching impact on how we understand obesity and longevity and potentially fight chemotherapy-resistant cancer.

Published in Cell Metabolism, the paper details a discovery made in the lab of Sean Curran, assistant professor of biogerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Curran’s lab looked at how proteins in our bodies respond to starvation, in particular a protein known as SKN-1 that binds to DNA and affects how the starvation response is mediated. (Nrf is the mammalian equivalent of SKN-1.)

The Curran lab’s finding that, in the presence of a starvation environment, cells initiate and regulate complex metabolic changes, sheds fascinating new light into the study of existing cellular mechanisms as well as opening the door for exciting intracellular bioengineering possibilities.

Curran and his team also found that although a mitochondrial pool of SKN-1 has never previously been identified, it is indeed present, most likely in the outer membrane of the mitochondria — they term this discovery mito-SKN-1.

“The regulation of lifespan is complex. SKN-1/Nrf were discovered decades ago, but this work uncovers a novel role for this well established player,” Curran said. “This discovery changes how we think about how transcription factors are regulated.”

Using a roundworm known as C. elegans, Curran and his lab studied how complex organisms responded on a cellular level to being starved.

They focused on the interaction of proteins PGAM-5 and MXL-3 with mitochondrial pools of SKN-1. Although most starved C. elegans were able to recover and achieve fertile adulthood when reintroduced to food, specially mutated worms were unable to turn off the body’s starvation response even in nutrient-rich environments – highlighting key molecular and physiological genetic differences of special interest to scientists.

“This starvation response has a huge impact on nutrient pathways that regulate lifespan and survival,” Curran said. “Although the amount of SKN-1 did not seem to make a difference, it’s the activated form of SKN-1 that matters.”

His team also found a correlation to the SKN-1 effects in mice when their activated Nrf similarly induced a starvation response. The team’s discovery has enormous potential repercussions when extrapolated to Nrf-positive tumors, which tend to be resistant to chemotherapy.

“By exploiting this starvation response, we might be able to think of new treatments,” Curran said.

This publication represents both a scientific and personal milestone for Curran, who holds joint appointments at the USC Leonard Davis School and in molecular and computational biology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences as well as in biochemistry and molecular biology at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

“Combining genetic, cell and molecular biology, and biochemistry approaches, this the first major publication from the Curran lab,” he said. “I am really proud of it.”

Co-authors of this study were Jennifer Paek and Tammy N. Nguyen (USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology); Jacqueline Y. Lo (Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science); Sri Devi Narasimhan, Kira Glover-Cutter, Stacey Robida-Stubbs and T. Keith Blackwell (Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Harvard Medical School); and Takafumi Suzuki (Tohoku University School of Medicine, Japan).

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants number R01GM6289 and R00AG032308) and the Ellison Medical Foundation.

Sep 21

An Award-Winning Advocate and Ally

By Jonathan Riggs Featured, Student Profile

Helping older adults has been USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology graduate student Brenda M. Vázquez’s day job for almost a decade, but she prides herself on continuing to search for new avenues and opportunities to serve.

In the past two years alone, she co-produced On the Move, a reality television show aimed at helping older Angelenos become physically active. She served as an advisor to the California State Libraries Association to create a health education toolkit for librarians to more efficiently serve the public. Vázquez also designed a pilot e-health promotion program, the Exergamers Wellness Club, to engage older adults in “playful” physical activity and self-care using technology, which won the top 2012 innovation award from the National Association of Senior Centers.

As the director of disease prevention and health promotion programs at Partners in Care Foundation, she has led numerous projects to enhance the health status and quality of life for older adults in Los Angeles, including the first implementation of evidence-based health promotion programs in Los Angeles senior centers. In light of her accomplishments and professional potential, Vázquez recently received a career development grant from the American Association of University Women, a national network dedicated to advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education and research.

“The AAUW award means a great deal to me as I prepare to take on formal research moving forward in my career,” she said. “Over the years, working with some of the most talented and committed professionals, we have conceptualized and implemented a variety of well received health innovation programs. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done in developing culturally appealing programs that engage and retain older participants.”

Vázquez joined Partners in Care in 2003 with the charge to start up a citywide health promotion program—the Wellness Club—under contract to the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging.

The program provides preventative clinical screenings, functional fitness assessments and evidence based health promotion programs to 16 senior centers and numerous community-based sites. The Wellness Club benefits from the guidance of a distinguished group of professionals in geriatrics and gerontology, including such experts as, Mary Cadogan, DrPH, from UCLA’s School of Nursing, Alison Moore, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine, and Dennee Frey, PharmD, a USC-affiliated pharmacist. Now in its tenth year, the program has grown to serve more than 6,000 elder residents annually across diverse neighborhoods, including demonstrated success reaching the city’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking elders as well as the aging African-American community.

“Cultural sensitivity and adaptive capacity are at the heart of the program’s success,” she said. “We tailor outreach and engagement to variables such as health status, location, language, literacy, values, culture, consumer interests and functional abilities.”

Her most recent innovation with the Wellness Club is a new program that pairs the video game system Kinect for Xbox 360 with evidence-based health education in order to help older adults “play” their way to increased physical activity and social engagement. Inspired by the program’s success, Vázquez will partner with the USC Leonard Davis School’s Kate Wilber, PhD, to conduct further directed research.

Another area Vázquez has been involved in is workforce development and training. As part of this initiative, her team took on a major role in coordinating the Geriatric Social Work Education Consortium (GSWEC), co-founded by Partners in Care Foundation’s CEO, June Simmons.

GSWEC is a unique model of collaboration between schools and agencies and allowed them to begin an internship program whose first intern was—Vázquez noted proudly—a USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology grad student.

“A field placement at Partners in Care or any of the other excellent agencies within GSWEC offers unique hands-on experiences for students planning to go into a range of leadership and professional roles in health and human services,” Vázquez said. “We are committed to educating the geriatric health, human services, social workers and gerontologists of the future.”

As she helps train the next generation of gerontologists and geriatric social workers while pushing herself and her colleagues to continually innovate on behalf of older Angelenos, Vázquez is also continuing her own academic and professional growth.

“I hope to bring my work to publication during my tenure at USC,” she said. “I am grateful and excited to collaborate with the many wonderfully talented and supportive professionals I’ve had the privilege to work with over the years at Partners in Care as well as here at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.”