Elizabeth Fernandez
Aging researcher at the Barshop Institute in San Antonio who has worked on rapamycin studies in mice and common marmosets, including the NIA Interventions Testing Program
Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, UT Health San Antonio, and Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center, South Texas Veterans Health Care System (PubMed affiliation 2014–2026) · Department of Pharmacology, UT Health San Antonio
Portrait: Barshop Institute, UT Health San Antonio
Rapamycin lengthens life in mice, but mice are far from people. Elizabeth Fernandez is a co-author of two Atlas studies that tried the drug in the common marmoset, a small, short-lived monkey. The 2014 study (TAR2014) worked out how to give rapamycin by mouth in a coated form, reached blood levels similar to those in mouse and human work, and saw lower mTORC1 signalling, the growth-control pathway, in the animals' tissues. The 2015 study (ROS2015) found that long-term treatment had only minor effects on body weight, activity, blood fats and glucose handling. Neither study measured lifespan.
Fernandez is also a co-author of a 2022 report from the NIA Interventions Testing Program (STR2022), which tests possible anti-aging drugs in genetically mixed mice at three sites. Rapamycin combined with acarbose, a diabetes drug, gave male mice a longer lifespan than rapamycin alone had in earlier cohorts. In females the combination was no better than rapamycin alone.
PubMed places Fernandez at the Barshop Institute, UT Health San Antonio, and at the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System on papers from 2014 to 2026. A 2026 paper with Randy Strong found that long-term rapamycin protected aging mice against the decline in motor function, with a larger effect in females. A current job title could not be confirmed from an official page.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | A | Testing efficacy of administration of the antiaging drug rapamycin in a nonhuman primate, the common marmoset. TAR2014 Co-author: part of the team that first described oral rapamycin dosing, blood levels and mTORC1 inhibition in common marmosets. |
| 2015 | A | Metabolic consequences of long-term rapamycin exposure on common marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus). ROS2015 Co-author: contributed to the study showing that long-term rapamycin had only minor metabolic effects in marmosets. |
| 2022 | A | Lifespan benefits for the combination of rapamycin plus acarbose and for captopril in genetically heterogeneous mice STR2022 Co-author: contributed to the Interventions Testing Program report in which rapamycin plus acarbose extended male mouse lifespan beyond rapamycin alone. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 10
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Elizabeth Fernandez.
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- Adam B. Salmon 3 shared studies Biologist of aging at UT Health San Antonio whose work in this Atlas spans rapamycin in mice and in common marmosets. He is a co-author on the Interventions Testing Program reports from the San Antonio site and on the marmoset rapamycin studies on blood markers, epigenetic age and the salivary gland
- Corinna Ross 2 shared studies Primate biologist at Texas Biomedical Research Institute who uses the common marmoset to test whether drugs such as rapamycin can protect health during aging
- Suzette Tardif 2 shared studies Primate biologist who spent more than 30 years developing the common marmoset as a research model, and who led the first studies of rapamycin dosing and safety in this small monkey
- David E. Harrison Led the Jackson Laboratory site of the NIA Interventions Testing Program. His 2009 Nature paper showed that rapamycin extends the lifespan of genetically diverse mice even when feeding starts at 20 months of age, which the authors described as the first pharmacological extension of lifespan in both sexes of a mammal
- James F. Nelson Physiologist of aging at UT Health San Antonio who studies how calorie restriction, sex hormones and drugs change mouse lifespan, and a co-investigator on the Interventions Testing Program
- Martin A. Javors Pharmacologist and professor at UT Health San Antonio who directs an analytical laboratory for biochemical and drug measurements, and a co-author of rapamycin studies in mice and in older people
- Matt Kaeberlein Extended TOR/aging research from yeast to mice to pet dogs
- Randy Strong Leads the San Antonio site of the NIA Interventions Testing Program, which tests each compound in parallel at three sites under one shared protocol. He first-authored the program's reports on resveratrol and other supplements (2012) and on rapamycin combined with acarbose (2022)
- Richard A. Miller Leads the University of Michigan site of the NIA Interventions Testing Program. His papers showed that rapamycin extends mouse lifespan when started in middle age, and that the size of the benefit depends on dose and differs between males and females
- Vivian Diaz Aging researcher at the Barshop Institute in San Antonio who has worked for more than a decade on the mouse lifespan studies behind rapamycin's reputation as an anti-aging drug, including the Interventions Testing Program
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