Michael Petrascheck

Michael Petrascheck, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Scripps Research. He holds a joint appointment in the Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences and the Neuroscience department. His research focuses on understanding aging mechanisms, lifespan extension via small molecules, and the interplay between aging and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. His lab uses C. elegans as a model organism to screen for lifespan-extending compounds and study transcriptional drift as a biomarker of aging.

• Education: Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Zurich (2001)
• Key Research Areas: Aging pathways, proteostasis, metabolic aging, and translational drug discovery

His work has led to the identification of over 100 lifespan-extending molecules and the development of metrics like transcriptional drift to measure biological aging. Notable achievements include NIH awards, Ellison Medical Foundation grants, and contributions to understanding how aging pathways influence age-related diseases.

Grants include NIH R01 and R21 grants (2018–2020) and the Brown Foundation Healthy Ageing Competition (2020).

Labs/Teams: Focuses on small molecule screening, proteostasis regulation, and neurodegenerative disease models.