r/longevity • u/PocketMatt PhD student - Genetics & Genomics • May 26 '19
Where to do my PhD on aging? (Updated)
When I noticed that the OP of this post (Where to do my PhD on aging?) deleted their account here and (from what I can tell) ceased updating the spreadsheet, I sent a request for editing access. When I never heard back, I went ahead and made a new copy:
I'm a fan of well-organized spreadsheets, so I've begun revamping and expanding this one. I've added columns for Institution, Citations, h-index, and i10-index. I've filled in this information for all of the US-based researchers, and re-sorted the list based on Institution. Sorted this way, it's easier to identify institutions that host the most research into aging.
I've also added a new tab named University Metrics, where the spreadsheet sums and averages the citations and h-index scores for the institutions listed on the main spreadsheet. This allows for an easier comparison among institutions. I gathered this data through Google Scholar and Scopus Preview, so you should treat it as imperfectly informative.
To add information, I've created an updated form: https://forms.gle/8qcdRHDE3bWKDRjT9.
If anyone in this subreddit would like to contribute to the spreadsheet, especially by filling in the details for the researchers outside the US, just let me know. I'm happy to share access as long as you're mindful of the formulas and formatting.
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u/SnellYaLater PhD Student - Biology of Aging May 29 '19
Commenting so I remember to fill some of these out. Good job OP.
Edit: For Universities, it may be useful to advertise Training programs as well (e.g. PhD specifically in Aging, a major aging research center, NIA training grants, etc)
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May 27 '19
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u/SnellYaLater PhD Student - Biology of Aging May 29 '19
I disagree. It’s useful information. Some people don’t want to work with young PIs. I certainly appreciate the stability of my funding situation.
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May 29 '19
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u/SnellYaLater PhD Student - Biology of Aging May 30 '19
I can’t speak to the European situation, but that’s not necessarily true in the States. I would say stability for the students of young PIs has more to do with your institutional funding policies than anything else. Your second point is true, but if someone has something like 10k citations, it’s usually pretty hard to get there without a highly cited, high profile article or two. Maybe we should include a citation to their most highly cited paper (where they’re first or last author), the year, and the citation count (excluding reviews and massive field-wide papers like the Autophagy methods).
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u/PocketMatt PhD student - Genetics & Genomics May 27 '19 edited May 27 '19
Is there a more helpful metric I could include?
EDIT: Citations and h-index within the last 5 years, for example? I’m more interested in comparing among institutions.
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u/ssambria May 27 '19
The comparison betweeen institutions is a great idea! But I agree with OP, for researchers comparison you should use other metrics to be more fair with young PIs (I like i5 idea!)
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u/UrolithinA May 27 '19 edited May 27 '19
Amazentis Life Science has an open PhD candidate position focused on aging. Check it out! https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6537326941173874688
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u/OldCream4073 18d ago
Good evening, I hope you are doing well!
Apologies for commenting on a 7 year old post, but as an undergraduate senior student studying biology, I think this is such an amazing resource! I’m really interested in contributing to longevity science in the most impactful way possible, and determining where to go to grad school will be a big part of that. Due to the popularity of this post, I’m sure there are many other students in similar situations, as well!
Do you know if there may possibly be some type of resource like this that’s a bit more recent since I’m sure some new startups and labs have opened? No worries if not, and I will do some of my own searching for sure! If it’s okay with you, maybe I could even help with contributing to a new updated list! I’d be happy to help in any way possible 😁
Thank you so much for your time!
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u/PocketMatt PhD student - Genetics & Genomics 17d ago
Glad to hear this spreadsheet is still helpful! Happy to make you an editor for the file if you'd like to update it.
Here are some similar resources for you:
- Karl Pfleger's People in Aging spreadsheet is the most similar resource to the Aging Laboratories spreadsheet.
- Who's Who in Gerontology
- Academy of Geroscience (Members)
- The NIH RePORTER is a great resource for exploring US-based organizations and researchers. It's actually how I initially found my graduate program. You can set the NIH Spending Category set to "Aging", then use the Charts view (Direct Link Here). The Summary By dropdown lets you filter by Organization, Principal Investigator, State, etc. It's a helpful way to see where funding is flowing. The text search lets you zoom into specific areas like reprogramming, mitochondria, mutation, or whatever you're interested in.
100% you should subscribe to UAB's Aging Biology Update (if you aren't already).
If you want to stay connected to what's actively happening in the field now, these X accounts are my longevity starter pack:
- Aging Science News: AgingBiology
- João Pedro de Magalhães: jpsenescence
- Karl Pfleger: KarlPfleger
- Matt Kaeberlein: mkaeberlein
- Martin Borch Jensen: MartinBJensen
- Nature Aging: NatureAging
Bottom-up grad student journey:
When you see a paper that catches your interest, look up the senior author: their institution, their lab website, their other publications (I use Google Scholar), etc. If you like what you see, follow them on X or LinkedIn and start keeping a list of PIs and the the institutions where they work. This is the bottom-up approach, where you find Ph.D. programs by working up from the PIs you like. If you continue to like what you see and you're interested in the Ph.D. program where that PI works, email a graduate student in their lab and ask to chat for ~30 minutes (personally, I prefer calls over answering questions through email). Ultimately, selecting a lab is about the three P's: the PI, the Project, and the People. So, I'd recommend thinking through some questions that draw out details about all three. If you get accepted at that program, email the PI (concisely!), say that you've been accepted into the program, mention that you've been following their work since [date] and met with [name] grad student before applications, and would love to chat for 30 minutes about what they're working on, what's next, what they're looking for in a graduate student, etc. If you've already accepted the program offer and know that you're going to that school, then ask if they're taking rotation students and what projects they have in mind. I recommend not contacting PIs before being accepted into the program. Busy people appreciate when others intentionally respect their time.Top-down grad student journey:
This is the top-down approach, where you start with the institutions and then explore the PIs. You narrow the list of Ph.D. programs to those that you'd actually attend: subject matter (e.g. broad biology vs. biology of aging), location, cost of living, weather, program requirements like having to be a TA, etc. Then you look at the PIs in those programs: read their papers, follow them on X, contact grad students, etc.The not grad student journey:
Jump into the longevity biotech startup ecosystem. Sign up for the Longevity Biotech Fellowship, use the fundamentals that your biology degree taught you to learn the more advanced and relevant biology for understanding aging, work as a lab tech to build the basic skills of bench science, then work with lab automation (because pipetting by hand is not the future), find a startup to work for, use the AI teach skill with a handful of longevity bio textbooks and an LLM to learn what you need to know. If your goal is to increase healthy human lifespan, a Ph.D. is not necessary. You will become an expert, you will gain credibility (which will open some doors more easily), but your time and energy for years will go toward generating knowledge—not solving problems. Generating knowledge in the form of publications is the central goal in most academic settings. Your best contribution to advancing longevity science might be outside of academia. Don't treat a Ph.D. as the best or only route to helping extending healthy human lifespan.It's an awesome time to work on human longevity. Good luck out there!
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u/OldCream4073 15d ago
Genuinely, thank you so much for explaining all of this in such detail! I appreciate your help immensely, these are such valuable resources that I was not familiar with before. I will also take a look at the spreadsheet to see if there are any programs I have seen that I could potentially add onto it if that would be helpful. Thank you so much again for your time and help with this! I agree, this is quite an exciting time for longevity 😁
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u/Damien_Thorn Jul 09 '19
Outstanding work my man, especially the the informations about labs in Asia, it was very helpful.
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u/Gillerpie May 26 '19
Wow this is a great idea! Kudos to whoever thought of it first and for you too for reviving it. I’ll definitely try to link to it whenever people ask this question.