SCEHSC Seminar Series with Valter Longo, PhD

Guest Speaker: Valter Longo, PhD

Title: Periodic Fasting Mimicking Diet, Longevity and Disease

Date: May 5th 2023

Chronic calorie restriction has both beneficial and detrimental effects on the ability of organisms to live longer and remain resilient. Dr. Longo's talk will focus on the identification and use of periodic fasting and fasting mimicking diet periods to promote resistance to multiple toxins and stresses while increasing the killing of damaged cells including cancer and autoimmune cells. The fasting/FMD-re-feeding cycles, also promote multi-system regeneration which involves in part the activation of embryonic-like programs and which contributes to lifespan extension.

Professor Valter Longo is internationally recognized as a leader in the field of ageing studies and related diseases. His discoveries include some of the major genetic pathways that regulate aging and life-threatening diseases and the identification of a genetic mutation that protects men from several common diseases. He has pioneered the studies of prolonged fasting and fasting mimicking diet and discovered their effect on multi-system stem cell activation and regeneration, leading to clinical trials on cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmunities. He is a Professor of Gerontology and Biological Science and Director of the Longevity Institute at the School of Gerontology of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, one of the leading centers devoted to teaching and research on ageing. He is also director of the Oncology and Longevity Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Oncology IFOM in Milan.

Professor Longo received the Nathan Shock Lecture Award from the National Institute on Ageing (NIA/NIH) in 2010, the Vincent Cristofalo ‘Rising Star’ Award for Research on Ageing in 2013, and the Glenn Award for research in the Biology of Aging in 2016.

His book, The Longevity Diet, is an international best seller, translated in over 15 languages and sold in more than 20 countries around the globe.