Impact
Pankaj Kapahi studies how nutrient signalling and metabolism influence aging and age-related disease. Trained with Tom Kirkwood at the University of Manchester and as a postdoctoral fellow with Seymour Benzer at Caltech and Michael Karin at UC San Diego, he joined the Buck Institute in 2004. His laboratory's earlier work, with others, showed that lifespan extension by inhibition of the TOR pathway overlaps with the effects of dietary restriction in flies, yeast and worms. Using worms, flies and mice, the lab examines how nutrients affect fat metabolism, circadian clocks, advanced glycation end products, calcification and intestinal permeability, and searches for genes and metabolites that act as calorie-restriction mimetics. A current translational focus is glycation stress: recent work reports glycation metabolites as predictors of age-related comorbidities, glycation-lowering compounds that reduce food intake via ghrelin signalling, and a published protocol for reducing glycation stress as a geroscience intervention in humans. He has also written on why studying females reveals more about aging (Cell, 2026). His awards include the NIA Eureka Award, an Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar Award, a Glenn Award, the Nathan Shock Young Investigator Award and AFAR Breakthrough in Gerontology and Julie Martin Mid-career awards.
Metrics
- h-index 65 · google scholar as of 2026-09-23 source ↗
Research output
273 works · 17,154 citations · h-index 60 OpenAlex ↗
Selected publications
- From discoveries in ageing research to therapeutics for healthy ageing ↗ 2019 · 1,451 citations
- Regulation of Lifespan in Drosophila by Modulation of Genes in the TOR Signaling Pathway ↗ 2004 · 1,317 citations
- Anti-inflammatory cyclopentenone prostaglandins are direct inhibitors of IκB kinase ↗ 2000 · 1,312 citations
- MTOR regulates the pro-tumorigenic senescence-associated secretory phenotype by promoting IL1A translation ↗ 2015 · 1,172 citations
- With TOR, Less Is More: A Key Role for the Conserved Nutrient-Sensing TOR Pathway in Aging ↗ 2010 · 689 citations
Research funding
49 NIH awards · USD 21M total NIH RePORTER ↗
- Determining the role of OXR1 in aging and Alzheimer's disease National Institute on Aging · 2021 · USD 851K
- The Interplay Between Diet and Mating Status in Influencing ovarian aging and Healthspan in Flies and Humans National Institute on Aging · 2026 · USD 821K
- Role of OXR1 and the retromer in brain aging and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias National Institute on Aging · 2026 · USD 809K
- The role of diet and aging in photoreceptor homeostasis and visual function decline National Institute on Aging · 2026 · USD 745K
- The role of diet and aging in photoreceptor homeostasis and visual function decline National Institute on Aging · 2024 · USD 745K