Christopher Petty

Chris Petty received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and master’s degree in Biotechnology from Boston University, where he studied cellular responses to oxidative stress and the role of noncoding RNAs in regulating cell fate. He is now a PhD candidate in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of David Sinclair.

Chris’s thesis research focuses on understanding and harnessing epigenetic restoration to reverse aging. His work has helped identify small-molecule reprogramming cocktails capable of reversing age-associated changes in cells, which he is now working to translate in vivo in aged and progeroid mice. In parallel, he is investigating the mechanism of how OSK reprogramming enables cells to recover youthful epigenetic information that becomes disrupted during aging.

Chris has received several honors, including the Beckman Scholar Award and Glenn Foundation Pilot Award, and has been an active mentor in the Sinclair Lab, training more than 20 high school, undergraduate, and master’s students.