Keynote Speakers

Dr. Rando is the director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a pioneer in stem cell biology and bioengineering. His research focuses on the molecular and epigenetic regulation of stem cell aging and resilience. Specifically, Dr. Rando and his team recently utilized single-cell transcriptomics to show exercise leads to the regeneration of aged stem cells across tissue types. Dr. Rando is a recipient of an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). Dr. Rando is currently the President of the American Federation of Aging Research and on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

He received his doctoral and medical training from Harvard University and performed his post-doctoral work at Stanford University in Molecular Pharmacology, where he went on to found the Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging. He also served as the Chief of Neurology at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center and Deputy Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.

Dr. Evans is a Professor and Director of the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute and the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology. Dr. Evans’ lab investigates molecular regulation of metabolism, obesity and metabolic disease, cancer, and insulin resistance, and were the first to discover the nuclear hormone receptor PPAR-delta. Further, Dr. Evans’ lab focuses on pharmacological exercise mimetics to treat diabetes that will help to overcome the continuing worldwide obesity epidemic. His discoveries have led to drugs that treat leukemia, prostate cancer, breast cancer, liver disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

Evans received his doctoral training from UCLA followed by postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University and joined the faculty of the Salk Institute in 1978. Among his many awards and accolades, Dr. Evans is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Academy of Arts and  Sciences (AAAS), an elected fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and an Investigator Emeritus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Esser is a Preeminence Term Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Aging at the University of Florida. Dr. Esser has pioneered efforts to understand the role of circadian rhythms on skeletal muscle and how exercise regulates circadian clock mechanism across the lifespan. Dr. Esser is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, as well as Co-Director of the Older Americans Independence Center and Associate Director for Basic Studies at the Myology Institute at the University of Florida. Currently, Dr. Esser is part of the Administrative Coordinating Center leadership team and continues her role leading a Preclinical Animal Study Site for the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) supported by the NIH.

She received her doctoral training at the University of Michigan, which was followed by post-doctoral training at Children’s Medical Research Institute in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Esser has held faculty appointments at the University of Illinois-Chicago and the University of Kentucky, where she served as the Director for the Center for Muscle Biology from 2010-2015.