I am a biogerontologist and Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Cardiff Metropolitan University where I lead the Cellular and Molecular Pathophysiology Research Group within the Centre for Cardiovascular Research, Innovation and Development (CURIAD).
Educated in Argentina and Israel, I graduated in 1983 with a PhD in Biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1985 I moved to the UK to undertake postdoctoral work with Nobel Laureate Cesar Milstein at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Between 1991 and 2006 I held academic positions at King’s College Medical School and at University College London, developing research on ageing and cardiovascular diseases. From 2003 to 2006 I held the post of Reader in Cell and Molecular Biology at UCL. In 2006 I was appointed to the Chair of Biomedical Sciences at Cardiff Metropolitan University where I continue to work at interface between biology and medicine. My current research focuses on the frailty syndrome and on understanding the pathophysiological implications of cellular senescence. My interest in frailty goes back to 2013 when I became a partner of the FRAILOMIC initiative, a large multinational EU-funded project to discover biomarkers of risk, diagnosis and prognosis of this condition.

I have authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications in high quality international journals (Scopus H index=39) and I am inventor in five patents. I gained international recognition for demonstrating the occurrence of vascular cell senescence in artery walls and for elucidating the origin of senescence-associated beta galactosidase, a cellular marker of senescence. I am a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and serve on the Translational and Clinical Research Arm of the Health and Care Research Wales Integrated Funding and on the Editorial Boards of Gerontology and npj Aging.