By Cristy Lytal

Valter Longo

Valter Longo, PhD, is out to prove that gerontology is a young man’s game. The 46-year-old USC professor of gerontology and biological sciences has dedicated his career to slowing the implacable process of aging.

Growing up in Genoa, Italy, Longo spent countless hours emulating the guitar stylings of rock legends Jimi Hendrix and Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits. At age 16, he moved to Chicago to take jazz guitar lessons before heading to the University of North Texas to continue his studies.

During his second year of college as a music major, Longo was tapped to direct the marching band. As his music sensibilities were deeply rooted in rock, he refused, and the music department told him to find a different major. “Without hesitation, I said, ‘I want to learn about aging,’” he said.

After receiving his PhD in biochemistry at UCLA, Longo decided to take a molecular approach to aging, so he joined the UCLA labs of chemist Joan S. Valentine, PhD, and geneticist Edith B. Gralla, PhD. … Read More »

By Alison Trinidad

On Dec. 18, 2013, Keck Medicine of USC became the world’s first medical center to surgically implant a responsive brain device newly approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat epilepsy, with the potential to help millions of people worldwide.

The device, manufactured by NeuroPace Inc., detects and then directly responds to abnormal brain activity to prevent seizures before they occur. In a three-hour surgery, USC faculty physicians implanted the device in a 28-year-old Lakewood, Calif., woman who was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2004.

Kathleen Rivas, an aspiring journalist who sought care from the university’s student health center in 2009 while earning her master’s degree elected to have the implant because medication had not fully controlled her seizures. Over the next few months, her doctors will program the device to detect specific brain activity indicative of a seizure’s onset. … Read More »

By Ellin Kavanagh and Cristy Lytal

With the launch of the Translational Biomedical Imaging Laboratory (TBIL), investigators at USC and The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles moved medical science closer to a day when diseases can be detected before symptoms appear.

TBIL is a unique, interdisciplinary collaboration that combines dynamic equipment, including state-of-the-art microscopes for imaging living specimens and whole organs, with an intellectual infrastructure of optical physicists, computer scientists, translational researchers and clinicians. … Read More »