Richard Hodes, MD, director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, will deliver the annual Denham Harman, MD, PhD, Lectureship in Biomedical Gerontology, as the UNMC Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Medicine’s annual lecture reaches its milestone 25th year of celebrating biomedical research.
The lecture, which is open to the med center community, will be held on April 24, from noon to 1 p.m., in the Gail and Mike Yanney Conference Center classroom (BCC 12101) at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. The event is part of internal medicine grand rounds.
Dr. Hodes has been director of the NIA since 1993. The institute conducts and supports research on aging and the special problems and needs of older adults, also serving as the lead federal agency for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia research.
Alfred Fisher, MD, PhD, chief of the UNMC Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Medicine, will host. “Making this year’s event especially meaningful, two of Dr. Harman’s children, Mark Harman, MD, and Ms. Robin Harman, plan to be on campus for the occasion,” Dr. Fisher said.
The lectureship honors the legacy of the late Denham Harman, MD, PhD, known internationally as the father of the Free Radical Theory of Aging and a UNMC faculty member for 52 years. Dr. Harman, who was nominated six times for the Nobel Prize, theorized that free radicals cause aging and disease through their destructive actions in cells and tissues. His foundational work helped establish UNMC as a leader in gerontology research.