Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D., assistant professor of cellular and structural biology at the Health Science Center, was named president-elect of the American Aging Association (AGE) at the organization’s 34th Annual Meeting June 6 in Oakland, Calif. She will assume the presidency next June and will organize the June 2007 meeting currently set to take place in San Antonio.
Dr. Van Remmen, also a Research Health Scientist with the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, has served as a scientific member of the AGE Board of Directors. She is the fourth current or former Health Science Center faculty member to be elevated to the AGE presidency. The others are Arlan G. Richardson, Ph.D., president in 1980 and 1982; Byung P. Yu, Ph.D., president in 1993; and Roger McCarter, Ph.D., president in 1997.
The primary focus of Dr. Van Remmen’s research is to study the role of the mitochondria (cell energy centers) and oxidative stress in aging and age-related diseases such as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This work is facilitated by the use of several transgenic and knockout mouse models that can alter endogenous (caused by factors inside the body) oxidative stress.
Dr. Van Remmen, a member of the Health Science Center’s Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, received another prestigious honor recently: selection as co-chair of a Gordon Research Conference on Oxidative Stress and Disease to be held in 2009. These conferences are highly regarded among researchers throughout the biological, chemical and physical sciences.
