MICHAEL FOSSEL

Dr. Fossel is president of Telocyte, a biotech firm targeting Alzheimer’s disease, intending to begin FDA-sponsored human trials aimed at curing the underlying disease process using telomerase therapy. In 2020, his invited article on the causes of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, A Unified Model of Dementias and Age-related Neurodegeneration, generated more than 1,000 reprint requests globally. It not only lays out a clear understanding but offers a novel point of intervention to potentially prevent and cure the dementias. He received a joint BA and MA in psychology in four years from Wesleyan University, and then won an NSF fellowship. He completed his PhD in Neurobiology in 1978 and his MD (both at Stanford University) in 1981, where he taught neuroanatomy, experimental design, and other courses in the medical school. He began to focus on aging, emphasizing premature aging syndromes, and the experimental testing of aging theories. Dr. Fossel was a Clinical Professor of Medicine for almost three decades, the director of the American Aging Association, editor of several journals, and a frequent speaker and chair at conferences. He has authored more than 100 articles, chapters, and books, on aging, medicine, and ethics. His academic textbook, Cells, Aging, and Human Disease, published by Oxford University Press, is an extensive look at the field, with well over four thousand references It reviews the fields of telomere biology and cell senescence as they apply to human clinical diseases and aging. Still the only medical textbook on the clinical potential of telomerase, it includes in-depth discussions of Alzheimer’s disease, the progerias, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, immune senescence, skin aging, and cancer, as well as the potential for fundamentally new therapies for these diseases using telomerase therapy. His more recent book, The Telomerase Revolution, discussed prospective FDA clinical trials of telomerase therapy as an effective intervention for Alzheimer’s disease. His book was lauded in both The London Times and the Wall Street Journal (as one of the five best science books of 2015). It is now out in 7 languages and 10 global editions.