Gerald Shadel is co-leading the Marmosets as a Model System of Aging and Neurodegeneration project.

Shadel received a BS in chemistry from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (US), and a PhD from Texas A&M University (US). He was a Damon-Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. He is the recipient of the 2006Glenn/Afar Breakthroughs in Gerontology Award, the 2007 Amgen Outstanding Investigator Award and the Glenn Foundation’s 2011 Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.

Shadel is studying the basic biology of mitochondria, dynamic “powerhouses” inside cells that generate energy from the food we eat. The Shadel lab identified mitochondrial dysfunction as a key element in the neurodegenerative disease ataxia-telangiectasia and developed the first mouse model of maternally inherited human deafness. He showed a novel role for mitochondrial signaling in regulating aging, and discovered that mitochondrial DNA activates the immune system.