Francesca MACCHIARINI

Title: Health Scientist Administrator

Office(s): Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology (DGCG)

Phone Number: 301-827-4013

Email Address: francesca.macchiarini@nih.gov

Biography

Francesca Macchiarini, Ph.D., M.S., is a program director and the chief of the Biological Resources Branch, Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging. She holds a M.S. in Molecular Biology and a Ph.D. in Molecular Immunology, both from the University of Maryland.

She has been a member of the NIH family for nearly forty years, starting with undergraduate & graduate internships and predoctoral & postdoctoral fellowships. A health scientist administrator since 2003, she joined the NIA in 2016 after thirteen years at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) where her portfolio covered broad scientific areas including pediatric and aging immunology; host immunity to pathogens in immune compromised populations such as the young, elderly, and pregnant women; animal models of organ transplantation; immune effects of radiation exposure; radiation biodosimetry; and radiation medical countermeasures product development.

Dr. Macchiarini currently directs the operations of the NIA aged animal resources and serves as the NIH scientific officer for NIA’s Intervention Testing Program while also wearing the hat of program officer for the Mechanisms of Resilience Program and Dog Aging Project.

Research Interests/Portfolio

Mechanisms of Resilience Program

Identification and elucidation of redundant versus unique mechanisms that support resilience
Interplay between cellular resilience and resilience at the organ and whole-body levels
Development of novel assays to classify and quantify resilience that can be used in a variety of in vivo and in vitro models