David Gems

David Gems is a Professor of Biogerontology (the scientific study of the biology of ageing) and the Research Director of the UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing (IHA). He graduated from Sussex University and then conducted research at Glasgow University, Imperial College, and the University of Missouri-Columbia USA, where in 1993 he began working on the biology of ageing in the short-lived nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans with Prof. Don Riddle. He set up my own research lab at UCL in 1997 with the support of a fellowship from the Royal Society. Much of his work uses C. elegans to understand the fundamental mechanisms that cause the ageing process, including late-life disease. Prof. Gems also contributed to studies of aging in other nematodes, Drosophila, the mouse and Pacific salmon, and explored ethical and philosophical issues relating to ageing research. He is a founder member of the IHA, and has contributed to over 140 articles, mostly on ageing.