Elissa Epel is an Associate Professor at UCSF. She is a psychology researcher who investigates the depths and intricacies of the mind-body connection. With her colleague Elizabeth Blackburn (Nobel Laureate, 2009) and team of collaborators, she has found that chronic psychological stress wears down the telomeres, the protective tips of chromosomes, around a decade earlier than expected. How we live, our everyday lifestyle choices are related to telomeres, and telomeres in turn predict early disease and death. Epel will share insights about how personality, mindset, and lifestyle can accelerate vs. protect us from premature cellular aging.’ Epel got her BA in Psychology from Stanford and PhD in Health Psychology from Yale. She was awarded the Am. Psychological Association Early Career Award. Epel is a co-founder of Telome Health, Inc., with Dr.’s Cal Harley, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Jue Lin.

Calvin Harley, Ph.D., is co-founder, CSO and President of Telomere Diagnostics, a molecular diagnostics company focused on leveraging telomere biology for health monitoring, disease risk, and drug response. Telomere aims to improve human ‘healthspan’ through personalized care based on telomere-related tests. Prior to Telomere, Dr. Harley was Chief Scientific Officer and VP Research of Geron Corporation (1994-2009), where he and his team successfully cloned the critical components of human telomerase and moved drugs based on telomerase into clinical trials. Dr. Harley received his education at Waterloo University (B.Sc. Honors Science) and McMaster University (PhD, Biochemistry) and has published extensively on medical applications for telomere research. He is an inventor on foundational patents related to telomere biology, telomerase, aging, and the diagnosis and treatment of disease. He enjoys multi-day camping in the summer and winter with his family and friends in the Sierra mountains.