Price Lab

Dr. Nathan Price is Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Human Healthspan at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. His academic career includes previous positions as Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology, and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Price holds affiliate faculty status at the University of Washington in Bioengineering and Computer Science & Engineering. Dr. Price has authored over 210 peer-reviewed publications and delivered more than 250 talks and keynotes.

His work has garnered numerous accolades.  In 2019, he was named one of 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Additional recognition includes an NSF CAREER award, being named a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and receiving the 2016 Grace A. Goldsmith Award for his work in pioneering “scientific wellness.” He is also a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and was Chair of the NIH Study Section on Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS).  He was the 2023 recipient of the Alexander & Mildred Seelig Award for science from the American Nutrition Association.

Dr. Price’s expertise extends beyond academia into the business world. He is also the Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne, a science-driven wellness company that serves approximately 5 million customers and 50,000 health-care practitioners. Previously he was Co-CEO of Onegevity, an AI health intelligence startup company that merged with Thorne, and he was part of the presenting team who took the resulting Thorne HealthTech through its NASDQA IPO in 2021.  He was co-founder and served on the Board of Directors of Arivale. He was also a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year for NY in 2021 and selected as one of the 86 “Notables in Healthcare” by Crain’s New York in 2022 and 2023. He has also co-authored a bestselling book, The Age of Scientific Wellness, with Lee Hood, and written for popular outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Scientific American.

Dr. Price has served on the Board of Trustees of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI), the Pacific Northwest Board of Advisors for the American Cancer Society, and the Oversight Board for the University of Virginia’s Wallace H. Coulter Center for Translational Research. He has served on numerous advisory boards for both academic institutions and industry leaders, including Roche, Providence St. Joseph Health, Sera Prognostics, Navican, Basepaws, Trelys, Rue Four Health, ProPetDx, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability. He has also contributed his expertise to national committees, including the NAM committee reviewing omics-based tests for clinical trials, and a series of workshops in 2023 on AI and biodata in the US and Southeast Asia, co-sponsored by NASEM and the U.S. State Department.

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  John Earls, PhD  Senior AI Scientist

  Dr. John Earls is a Senior AI Scientist at the Buck Institute for Aging, working in the Price lab. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Earls specializes in leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze multi-omic, longitudinal human health data with the goal of optimizing wellness and preventing disease. Dr. Earls is dedicated to translating research into practical applications that enhance people's lives. He co-founded Aevum Aging, which was later acquired by Thorne Healthtech, and was an early team member at Arivale, the pioneering company in multi-omic scientific wellness. Outside of his research, Dr. Earls is passionate about weightlifting and enjoys quality time with his family.

  JEarls@buckinstitute.org

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  Qiongrong Huang, PhD  Postdoctoral Researcher

  Dr. Qiongrong Huang is a postdoctoral researcher in the Price Lab. She earned her Ph.D. in systems biomedicine from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Huang's expertise spans bioinformatics, multi-omics, machine learning, and gut microbiome analysis. Her past research includes deep learning on cancer cell images and a longitudinal multi-omics clinical cohort study on metabolic syndrome interventions. She has also explored conditions such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT). At the Buck Institute, Dr. Huang will continue working in systems biomedicine, utilizing machine learning tools to analyze longitudinal, multi-omics, and dense health data, with the aim of identifying potential strategies to enhance human lifespan and healthspan.

  qhuang@buckinstitute.org

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  Bartek Nogal, PhD  Senior Data Scientist

  Bartek is a Senior Data Scientist at the Buck Institute, bringing diverse experience from engineering and device development to animal science and biophysics. He earned his Bachelor's and Master’s in Biological Engineering from Cornell University, followed by work at NASA Ames on nanopore technology for DNA damage detection. Transitioning to biotech, he led clinical oncology projects at Genentech, Gilead, and Novartis. Bartek completed his PhD at Scripps Research, where his work on HIV vaccine immunogens was featured in Cell Reports. He later joined a precision health company, leading the development of an integrated DTC genomics product. Committed to improving the resolution of current definitions of health and disease, Bartek now focuses on AI and bioinformatics to advance precision health in the Price Lab. Outside the lab, he enjoys reading, staying physically active, and outdoor adventures with his three kids and two German Shepherds.

  bnogal@buckinstitute.org

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  Vivek Ananth Ratnam Palanikumar, PhD  Postdoctoral Researcher

  Dr. Vivek Ananth is a postdoctoral researcher at the Price Lab. He earned his PhD in Life Sciences from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) in Chennai, India. His doctoral research centered on the "Compilation, curation, and exploration of natural product spaces to enable traditional knowledge-based drug discovery." At Buck, his work focuses on analyzing longitudinal multi-omics data to enhance the healthspan of individuals using network science, bioinformatics, and cheminformatics approaches. More broadly, his research interest lies in mapping observed emergent phenotypes to the underlying multi-omics data and associated metadata to uncover the underlying biology. Outside the lab, he enjoys practicing yoga, meditation, and hiking, and he is also a certified breathwork and meditation instructor.

  vratnam@buckinstitute.org

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  Kevin Perrott, PhD  Senior Program Manager

  Kevin Perrott spent his early years as an entrepreneur and owner of the largest snowmobile and motorcycle dealership in Canada with more than 50 years in business. After becoming a cancer survivor he turned to the study of aging to obtain a PhD in the lab of Judith Campisi at the Buck Institute examining the relationship of senescent cells to cancer and the ability of natural products to prevent metastasis. During this time he cofounded Oisin Biotechnologies which develops gene therapies to address age-related disorders. Over two decades he has helped multiple non- and for-profit organizations as a Board Member and Advisor whose Missions’ are to accelerate aging research. He seeks to use this experience to benefit the work of the Price Lab and the Buck Institute. Dr. Perrott is also CEO of OpenCures, a for-benefit open science platform that helps individuals use science to measure their health and focus the value of their data on the research problems they are interested in solving.

  KPerrott@buckinstitute.org