Don Kleinsek

Don Kleinsek, PhD, is Founder and President of GeriGene. His work focuses primarily on nutrition and aging, including caloric restriction, and specifically on flies. Recently, at a worldwide meeting of antiaging physicians and scientists in Las Vegas, Don Kleinsek presented a talk on pharmaceutical targets for age-related disease, based on gene discovery, that included a skillful defense of the cross-link theory of aging, originally created by life-extension pioneer Dr. Johan Bjorksten. Through his association with Bjorksten and his work as president and director of the Bjorksten Research Foundation, Dr. Kleinsek has come into contact with an innovator, whom two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling called "one of the most active and effective students of longevity in the world."

Kleinsek's degrees, in chemistry, physiological chemistry, cell biology, hormone action and molecular genetics, have prepared him to go on and investigate new possibilities for molecular, biological and genetically based therapies. Among his advances to date are the discovery and product development of cholesterol-lowering agents and proof of altered gene expression during cell senescence. His firm, GeriGene Medical Corp, is a front-runner in the area of gerontological genetics - how to prolong life through genetic engineering.