Yuancheng Ryan Lu

Yuancheng Ryan Lu is a K99 Research Associate at the Whitehead Institute and MIT, where he studies the genetic and epigenetic foundations of aging and its reversal, using the eye as a model system.

During his PhD with David Sinclair at Harvard, in collaboration with Zhigang He’s lab, Lu developed an AAV-based in vivo reprogramming approach that rejuvenated retinal neurons and restored visual function in models of aging and glaucoma (Lu, et al., Nature, 2020). This work helped establish age reversal as a tractable therapeutic concept and provided experimental support for the hypothesis that aging involves a reversible loss of epigenetic information (Lu, Tian, Sinclair, Nature Aging, 2023). The technology has since advanced to clinical translation by Life Biosciences, with a gene therapy based on this approach entering a Phase I clinical trial for age-related vision loss.

In his postdoctoral work with Jonathan Weissman and Bruce Ksander, Lu has integrated genome-scale perturbation screening with functional studies in aged animals to discover and engineer two novel rejuvenation factors capable of restoring age-related declines in vision and broader physiological function (Lu, et al., 2025; 2026). He also co-develops single-cell foundation models to design novel rejuvenation factors for human cells.

Ryan was named to the 2026 MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 and selected as the year’s featured innovator for Biotechnology, recognizing his work toward developing new strategies to understand and reverse age-related functional decline.