Christopher R
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Expertise
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; Computational Modelling; Biology of Aging
Bio
Hi! I am a graduate student studying aging (or lack thereof) in highly regenerative planarian worms. I am interested in understanding the theoretical constraints that can push an organism to evolve to be ageless, as well as mechanistic barriers to doing so. I use mathematical modelling, population genetics, and simulations to evaluate the possibility of biological immortality in the natural world. I love playing board games, camping, and reading and writing science fiction! My favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut.Project ideas
A Safer World
The life expectancy of people in the modern world is almost double what it was a century ago. What drove this massive increase? What are the differences in lifespan between countries? Will lifespan continue to increase? This project will explore why humans today are some of the healthiest in history and what can be done to make the world even safer tomorrow. We will look at the amazing technologies that lengthened lives in the 20th century, as well as the tragic events that shortened them. We will also analyze the sources of mortality which plague us most heavily today, and how scientific and industrial development can combat them. At the end of this project, I will help you create visualizations of the data you have gathered about mortality and life expectancy. We can either use d3 or R (or any other software you would like to learn) to create graphs of lifespan across the world and throughout the century. I will also help you present data from government organizations on predictions for lifespan in the 21st century. We can also analyze mortality causes and magnitudes to identify promising targets for improving the health and safety of human beings in the future. Image: COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Narok, Kenya. Credit: Baz Ratner / REUTERS