Dr. Belsky’s research sits at the intersection of public health, population & behavioral sciences, and genomics. His studies seek to understand how genes and environments combine to shape health across the life course. The goal of Dan’s work is to reduce social inequalities in aging outcomes in the US and elsewhere.

Dan’s research in genetic epidemiology includes polygenic score studies of the development of obesity, asthma, smoking behavior, depression, and socioeconomic risk. His work in aging has focused on the development and analysis of algorithms to quantify the process of biological aging, especially in young and midlife adults. Dan’s work has received international attention, including by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Guardian newspapers, and appeared in outlets including PNAS, Nature Human Behaviour, the JAMA journals, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, and top journals in epidemiology and gerontology.

Dan is currently pursuing three related streams of research: (i) Development of methods to quantify processes of biological aging in young and midlife humans; (ii) Analysis of longitudinal cohort study and randomized trial data to identify molecular and behavioral pathways to resilience through which at-risk individuals can slow their pace of aging; and (iii) Analysis of gene-environment interplay to identify environmental factors that can be modified to reduce genetic risk for age-related disease and functional decline.

At the Lisbon summit Dan will present his talk about ” QUANTIFICATION OF BIOLOGICAL AGING”