Over my 28-year career, I have conducted diverse research in academic and pharmaceutical settings. Initially focused on cardiovascular, metabolic, and neuropsychiatric clinical trials, I shifted to aging, lifespan, and healthspan research in 2005. I coined “Healthspan Pharmacology” in 2015, aiming to decelerate aging using natural products. My lab developed an algorithm to identify anti-aging compounds, discovering five that extend lifespan in flies: Rhodiola rosea, Rosa damascena, curcumin, cinnamon, and Angelica keiskei. In 2018, we expanded to mouse models, studying Rhodiola rosea’s impact on health biomarkers and microbiomes, ultimately aiming to test these compounds on human health. I am also invested in educational research, creating the Life101 course in 2012, now available across UC campuses and on Coursera, with over 17,000 learners. Recently, I have expanded to clinical studies on minerals in hair and blood and the impact of personality on therapy adherence in leukemia patients. I am also involved in a Citizen Science project on the mental health impact of Nature Wellness Stations, reflecting my commitment to improving health and well-being through diverse research approaches.

With an integrative approach to pharmaceutical sciences that transcends basic, translational, and clinical research, the Jafari Laboratory has successful developed a research program that encompasses five main areas of research: Healthspan Pharmacology, OMIC-AI and Machine Learning Drug Discovery, Dietary Supplements and Botanicals Research, Educational Research, and Algorithmic Phenotypic Screening. Through these diverse projects, students are able to learn about the various stages of academic research, from the theoretical to the clinical, and they are also able to develop skills that are essential for the future of drug discovery. Using the fruit fly as our main model system since 2006, our research team has developed unique expertise in working with these small organisms and have even validated novel methodological techniques that leverage new machine learning technologies. Through our work on aging and lifespan research, we have also developed the concept of “healthspan” to better understand the effects that pharmaceuticals and botanicals have.

Healthspan is a holistic measure of an organism’s life, encompassing not only lifespan but also other factors that more clearly define its state of health. In other words, it is the span of time an organism stays healthy, not just alive. Physiological functions including locomotor activity, cognitive ability, and reproductive fitness are typically measured as healthspan indicators. By examining healthspan, we can focus on finding pharmaceutical agents that length an organism’s lifespan without decreasing its quality of life. We believe that by slowing the aging process in this way, we can delay the progression of a number of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease or cardiovascular disease. Our ultimate goal is to add healthy, functional years to human life.

Some of the key objectives for our research include:

• Identification of anti-aging botanical extracts and their putative active compounds that increase lifespan and improve healthspan.