Stubbs Lab

Lab focus

The Stubbs lab studies what it looks like when aging goes right, not just what goes wrong. We recruit and deeply phenotype people at the upper bound of human function— alongside healthy and at-risk older adults, and ask what separates those who keep their function from those who lose it. Our work follows a measure, characterize, intervene framework. We measure function directly, through clinical trials testing physical and cognitive function testing and quality of life assessments We characterize the underlying biology using advanced molecular analysis including proteomics, spatial transcriptomics, and engineered muscle tissue grown from donor cells. And we intervene, testing whether strategies such as exogenous ketone esters and structured lifestyle programs can shift the trajectory of aging itself. Muscle sits at the center of this program, because it is both a physical and molecular readout of how well the whole body is aging. We collaborate closely with Buck faculty across bioenergetics, proteomics, and computational aging science, and Dr Stubbs co-directs the Buck Clinical Research Unit, the infrastructure that carries these discoveries from the bench into human studies.

Why it matters

Medicine has traditionally defined aging by what goes wrong — the diseases accumulated, the functions lost. That framing has left the field without a clear scientific target for the other half of the story: what does healthy aging actually look like, and can it be measured, protected, and extended? The World Health Organization's concept of intrinsic capacity, now a recognized diagnostic category, reframes healthy aging as the maintenance of physical and cognitive function rather than simply the absence of disease — a shift with real consequences for how clinical trials are designed and how future gerotherapeutics could be approved by the FDA. Loss of muscle function is among the strongest predictors of independence, hospitalization, and mortality in older adults, yet men and women often follow different trajectories that remain poorly understood. By studying people who have already aged exceptionally well, building tools to measure functional capacity at scale, and testing interventions that target the biology of resilience, we aim to make healthy aging not the exception but a scientifically defined, achievable target for everyone.