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Buck Institute
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Biomedical research institute targeting age-related diseases
Buck Institute
Work Here?
Biomedical research institute targeting age-related diseases
Overview
Buck Institute in Novato is the largest independent scientific institute in the Bay Area. It conducts research aimed at ending the threat of age-related diseases by bringing together scientists from multiple disciplines to study how aging happens and how to slow or impede it. Its work yields findings and potential therapies that could extend healthy years of life. Unlike many research centers, it operates as an independent institution and is globally recognized as a leader in aging research. Its goal is to increase human healthspan so people can enjoy more healthy years and reduce the impact of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, macular degeneration, heart disease, and diabetes.
About Buck Institute
Industries
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Grant
Total Funding
$3.5M
Headquarters
Novato, California
Founded
1998
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Oracle partnership on Sep. 23, 2026 gives Buck 122 million-plus real-world records.
- Lisa Seitz Gruwell joined as Chief Advancement Officer to accelerate fundraising on Sep. 23.
- Givens and Fennec partnerships widen distribution across senior living and biological AI.
What critics are saying
- Jin v. Buck Institute continues in Marin County Superior Court, with defamation and termination claims.
- Buck still depends on philanthropy and partnerships; no recurring product revenue exists.
- If THRIVE, Oracle, or donor support stalls, Buck loses operating leverage.
What makes Buck Institute unique
- Buck Institute remains the sole independent U.S. research institution dedicated exclusively to aging biology.
- Healthspan Horizons federates wearables, labs, and discovery data into longitudinal healthspan models.
- Oracle and THRIVE place Buck inside ARPA-H-funded clinical aging infrastructure.
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Funding
Total Funding
$3.5M
Above
Industry Average
Funded Over
1 Rounds
Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Paid Vacation
Paid Parental Leave
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6 month growth
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↑ 0%Oracle and Buck Institute for Research on Aging advance landmark federal aging research initiative. Sep 23, 2026, 08:35 ET Buck Institute aims to advance bioinformatics using Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence to transform aging research into a predictive, data-driven science ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Oracle Health and Life Sciences Summit - Oracle and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging are collaborating to advance intelligence into age-related disease and support discoveries that can extend the healthy years of life. Buck will leverage Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, which encompasses 122 million+* de-identified longitudinal Oracle Health Real-World Data records and advanced analytics to research biomarkers that aim to enable early detection and targeted intervention for aging-related complications. The research will also be used to pursue qualification for the first FDA-grade "Intrinsic Capacity Score," a vitality score for healthy aging. Decoding Age-Related Illnesses The Buck Institute serves as one of the analytics and bioinformatics engines for the Stanford University-led Transforming Health: Reclaiming Intrinsic Vitality for Everyone (THRIVE) consortium of scientists. THRIVE is a component of the PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience (PROSPR) program from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The THRIVE team's goal is to develop a validated measure of physical and mental capacity designed to help predict long-term health trajectories and enable earlier interventions for age-related decline in a patient's health journey. Using Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, researchers at Buck Institute aim to construct patient cohorts and apply advanced analytics to decades of longitudinal health records to identify subtle clinical changes that may indicate frailty or chronic disease years before onset. The team plans to build a statistically validated model capable of predicting which patients are at greatest risk - and when - to support proactive care and accelerate the path to clinical trials for aging-related interventions. "Understanding how and why we age is one of the most complex challenges in modern medicine," said Dr. David Furman, PhD, Buck Institute for Research on Aging. "Having the right solution and accessible patient data to aid in the study, discovery, and measurement of health span is essential. Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, together with the depth and breadth of its real-world data, will enable us to begin to link early clinical signals and long-term outcomes. We hope to fundamentally change how to predict, delay, and address age-related decline." With Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, Buck Institute's researchers gain secure, hosted access to a vast repository of de-identified real-world health data. They can log in, build cohorts, run queries, and conduct bioinformatics workflows without extensive data preparation. This will help move more quickly from scientific hypothesis to analytical output in support of THRIVE's goals. "Buck Institute is helping lead one of the most ambitious efforts to transform research on aging into a predictive science, and Oracle is proud to provide the data and analytics foundation to accelerate this work," said Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle Health and Life Sciences. "By combining advanced AI-driven analytics with one of the industry's largest collections of de-identified longitudinal real-world health data, our solution can help researchers uncover earlier signals of age-related decline. This collaboration could reshape how we understand aging, and how to aid early intervention research to help people live healthier, longer lives." Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence is a generative AI-enabled, cloud-native analytics environment that unifies owned, third-party, and real-world data into a single research-ready workspace. Built for life sciences organizations that need to move from data to insight without complex data engineering, the solution deploys AI capabilities that can clarify research intent, generate and refine hypotheses, propose analyses for review, and surface evidence within user-defined guardrails, with full visibility into data lineage. To learn more about how Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence can accelerate discovery, clinical trials, pharmacovigilance, and commercialization, visit: https://www.oracle.com/life-sciences/data-intelligence/. *All data pulled from Oracle Health Data Intelligence and current as of May 2026 and calculated using distinct person IDs, which leverage a multipoint match algorithm to account for and remove duplicates within a single health system; patients who have visited multiple health systems may appear more than once in the data. This research was, in part, funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the United States Government. About Oracle Life Sciences Oracle Life Sciences is a leader in cloud technology, pharmaceutical research, and consulting, trusted globally by professionals in both large and emerging companies engaged in clinical research and pharmacovigilance, throughout the therapeutic development lifecycle, including pre- and post-drug launch activities. With more than 20 years of experience, Oracle Life Sciences is committed to supporting clinical development and leveraging real-world evidence to deliver innovation and accelerate advancements - empowering the life sciences industry to improve patient outcomes. Learn more at www.oracle.com/lifesciences. About Oracle Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com. Trademarks Oracle, Java, MySQL and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company - ushering in the new era of cloud computing. About the Buck Institute Our success will ultimately change healthcare. At the Buck, we aim to end the threat of age-related diseases for this and future generations by bringing together the most capable and passionate scientists from a broad range of disciplines to identify and impede the ways in which we age. An independent, nonprofit institution, our goal is to increase human healthspan, or the healthy years of life. Globally recognized as the pioneer and leader in efforts to target aging, the number one risk factor for serious diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, macular degeneration, heart disease, and diabetes, the Buck wants to help people live better longer. Learn more at: https://buckinstitute.org. SOURCE Oracle
Oracle and Buck Institute for Research on Aging advance landmark federal aging research initiative. Buck Institute aims to advance bioinformatics using Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence to transform aging research into a predictive, data-driven science Oracle Health and Life Sciences Summit, Orlando, Florida - Sep 23, 2026 Oracle and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging are collaborating to advance intelligence into age-related disease and support discoveries that can extend the healthy years of life. Buck will leverage Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, which encompasses 122 million+* de-identified longitudinal Oracle Health Real-World Data records and advanced analytics to research biomarkers that aim to enable early detection and targeted intervention for aging-related complications. The research will also be used to pursue qualification for the first FDA-grade "Intrinsic Capacity Score," a vitality score for healthy aging. Decoding age-related illnesses. The Buck Institute serves as one of the analytics and bioinformatics engines for the Stanford University-led Transforming Health: Reclaiming Intrinsic Vitality for Everyone (THRIVE) consortium of scientists. THRIVE is a component of the PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience (PROSPR) program from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The THRIVE team's goal is to develop a validated measure of physical and mental capacity designed to help predict long-term health trajectories and enable earlier interventions for age-related decline in a patient's health journey. Using Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, researchers at Buck Institute aim to construct patient cohorts and apply advanced analytics to decades of longitudinal health records to identify subtle clinical changes that may indicate frailty or chronic disease years before onset. The team plans to build a statistically validated model capable of predicting which patients are at greatest risk - and when - to support proactive care and accelerate the path to clinical trials for aging-related interventions. "Understanding how and why we age is one of the most complex challenges in modern medicine," said Dr. David Furman, PhD, Buck Institute for Research on Aging. "Having the right solution and accessible patient data to aid in the study, discovery, and measurement of health span is essential. Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, together with the depth and breadth of its real-world data, will enable us to begin to link early clinical signals and long-term outcomes. We hope to fundamentally change how to predict, delay, and address age-related decline." With Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence, Buck Institute's researchers gain secure, hosted access to a vast repository of de-identified real-world health data. They can log in, build cohorts, run queries, and conduct bioinformatics workflows without extensive data preparation. This will help move more quickly from scientific hypothesis to analytical output in support of THRIVE's goals. "Buck Institute is helping lead one of the most ambitious efforts to transform research on aging into a predictive science, and Oracle is proud to provide the data and analytics foundation to accelerate this work," said Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle Health and Life Sciences. "By combining advanced AI-driven analytics with one of the industry's largest collections of de-identified longitudinal real-world health data, our solution can help researchers uncover earlier signals of age-related decline. This collaboration could reshape how we understand aging, and how to aid early intervention research to help people live healthier, longer lives." Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence is a generative AI-enabled, cloud-native analytics environment that unifies owned, third-party, and real-world data into a single research-ready workspace. Built for life sciences organizations that need to move from data to insight without complex data engineering, the solution deploys AI capabilities that can clarify research intent, generate and refine hypotheses, propose analyses for review, and surface evidence within user-defined guardrails, with full visibility into data lineage. To learn more about how Oracle Life Sciences Data Intelligence can accelerate discovery, clinical trials, pharmacovigilance, and commercialization, visit: https://www.oracle.com/life-sciences/data-intelligence/. * All data pulled from Oracle Health Data Intelligence and current as of May 2026 and calculated using distinct person IDs, which leverage a multipoint match algorithm to account for and remove duplicates within a single health system; patients who have visited multiple health systems may appear more than once in the data. This research was, in part, funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the United States Government. Contact info. Judi Palmer Oracle, Corporate Communications Robin Snyder Vice President, Communications, Buck Institute About Oracle Life Sciences. Oracle Life Sciences is a leader in cloud technology, pharmaceutical research, and consulting, trusted globally by professionals in both large and emerging companies engaged in clinical research and pharmacovigilance, throughout the therapeutic development lifecycle, including pre- and post-drug launch activities. With more than 20 years of experience, Oracle Life Sciences is committed to supporting clinical development and leveraging real-world evidence to deliver innovation and accelerate advancements - empowering the life sciences industry to improve patient outcomes. Learn more at www.oracle.com/lifesciences. About the Buck Institute. Its success will ultimately change healthcare. At the Buck, Oracle Corporation aim to end the threat of age-related diseases for this and future generations by bringing together the most capable and passionate scientists from a broad range of disciplines to identify and impede the ways in which Oracle Corporation age. An independent, nonprofit institution, its goal is to increase human healthspan, or the healthy years of life. Globally recognized as the pioneer and leader in efforts to target aging, the number one risk factor for serious diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, macular degeneration, heart disease, and diabetes, the Buck wants to help people live better longer. Learn more at: https://buckinstitute.org. About Oracle. Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit Oracle Corporation at www.oracle.com. Trademarks. Oracle, Java, MySQL, and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company - ushering in the new era of cloud computing.
Collaborate or collapse: winning the longevity economy together. September 15, 2026 Closing out the first day of this year's Spring Senior Living Innovation Forum, HumanGood CEO John Cochrane didn't reach for industry jargon or a tidy list of takeaways. He reached for a report card. Growing up in Springfield, Illinois, Cochrane dreaded the "citizenship" section of his report card - specifically, the box marked "not working up to potential." It often got checked, he said. Decades later, that same phrase is how he sees the senior living industry today: an entire industry bursting with passion, expertise, and good ideas, but still not operating at the scale its moment demands. A Field With Untapped Potential That's the main message at the heart of Cochrane's message. The demographic of those wanting or needing senior living is fast coming. The workforce that will need to care for it is shrinking. The economics of Medicare and Medicaid are straining under the weight of it all. It's a "perfect storm," he said, and no single operator, however large, can weather it alone. Still, Cochrane's tone wasn't alarmist, it was optimistically energizing. "This is a great time to be us," he told attendees, pointing to an industry sitting on more expertise and more opportunity than it's given credit for. The problem isn't capability, it's narrative, and embracing the necessity of collaboration. The X Prize Wake-Up Call Two-and-a-half years ago, Cochrane read about the $100M X Prize Healthspan Longevity Challenge, aimed at rolling back the effects of aging in cognition, physical strength, and immune response. His first reaction: Senior Living Innovation Forum need to compete. His second: Senior Living Innovation Forum is already doing this work every day. That realization led HumanGood to partner with the Buck Institute, a leading biology-of-aging research lab that, Cochrane discovered, has a "last mile" problem. Buck has the science. Senior living operators have the trust, the relationships, and the residents ready to participate. Pairing the two, he argued, is how real breakthroughs reach real people. Proof, Not Platitudes Cochrane pointed to a pilot program at HumanGood: a 12-week physical wellness intervention for residents aged 75 to 95. Every participant improved on every measure - including a 177% gain in single-leg balance, a number with direct implications for fall prevention, hospitalizations, and cost of care. His point wasn't the intervention itself - it was simple, low-tech, and replicable. His point was the data. In response to a question from an audience member, Cochrane was blunt: the industry does profound good but rarely proves it. "If you don't have the data today to show the impact, you might as well not have done it," he said. Customers today, he argued, aren't satisfied by "I feel stronger" - they want to see the number. Cochrane also highlighted HumanGood's research partnership with the MIT AgeLab, aimed at understanding tomorrow's senior living customer - a category that now includes adult children, caregivers, and family decision-makers, not just the resident. The Bottom Line Cochrane's closing message was a direct challenge to his peers: stop treating competitors as rivals and start treating them as collaborators. Share programs. Share data. Share research partnerships. The opportunity - closing the gap between health span and life span - is too large, and too urgent, for any one organization to chase alone. As Cochrane put it: Senior Living Innovation Forum don't have to invent this work. Senior Living Innovation Forum is already doing it, and doing it well. The task now is proving it, scaling it, and doing it together - because in the longevity economy, the choice really is: collaborate or collapse. Want something amazing? Get it in your inbox;). By entering your email you expressly consent to receive its newsletter and other material related to the Senior Living Innovation Forum.
The Buck names Lisa Seitz Gruwell as Chief Advancement Officer. The Buck Institute for Research on Aging today announced the appointment of Lisa Seitz Gruwell as its Chief Advancement Officer. In this role, Seitz Gruwell will lead all aspects of the Buck's advancement efforts - philanthropy, communications, and marketing - and serve as a key member of the Institute's executive leadership team. "We are thrilled to welcome Lisa to the Buck," said Eric Verdin, MD, President and CEO. "Lisa has proven and deep expertise in philanthropy, communications, and community building for mission-driven organizations. We are confident that, in partnership with our board and executive team, she will play a leading role in helping us achieve our critical fundraising goals." Seitz Gruwell joins the Buck after 15 years at Wikipedia, where she was Chief Advancement Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Wikipedia Foundation and President of the Wikimedia Endowment. During Seitz Gruwell's time at Wikipedia, she increased philanthropic giving from approximately $30M to $230M per year and founded the Wikimedia Endowment, a separate charity that grew to over $200M under her leadership. She also led the community growth teams that recruited, trained, and supported the global community of over 280,000 active volunteers who create Wikipedia. "The Buck Institute's researchers are making accelerated progress on our understanding of aging and age-related disease, and their work is already significantly improving human health," Seitz Gruwell said. "There is a tremendous opportunity to tell the story of the Buck to the world and engage people in supporting our efforts to help people live better longer." Prior to joining Wikipedia, Seitz Gruwell was Chief Operating Officer for Skyline Public Works and the Rappaport Family Foundation, which blended venture capital with philanthropy to support and incubate social good organizations. Earlier in her career, she held various roles in public relations, political consulting, and public policy. Science is showing that while chronological aging is inevitable, biological aging is malleable. There's a part of it that you can fight, and Buck Institute is getting closer and closer to winning that fight. Eric Verdin, MD, Buck Institute President and CEO
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging and Fennec Engineering partner to build the safety infrastructure for Biological AI. Fennec Engineering Jul 08, 2026, 11:00 ET Fennec and the Buck Institute partner to unite longevity science, functional safety, and autonomous systems engineering to make AI-driven biological research trustworthy at scale. COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ - The Buck Institute for Research on Aging and Fennec Engineering today announced a partnership to explore and support the specialized safety infrastructure required for developing biological AI systems responsibly. The partnership brings together more than 25 years of Buck's scientific research expertise and Fennec's proven functional safety frameworks to solve a defining engineering challenge: ensuring that generative AI operating within complex biological systems does so reliably, predictably, and with full accountability. Meeting the Moment in Biological AI As AI takes on a greater role in biological research, it introduces new safety challenges: black box AI models can produce novel biological structures with no historical analog, making traditional checklist-based risk assessment and validation insufficient. Buck and Fennec are addressing this through an integrated framework that hardwires automated safety guardrails directly into AI-driven biological simulations, anchored in the fundamental cause-and-effect mechanisms of biology itself. The result is a system capable of predicting and neutralizing emergent risks before they leave a digital simulation environment, or what the partners call proactive trust. Buck Faculty member James Yurkovich, PhD leads the Laboratory for Applied Systems BioAI and is spearheading this partnership. "As we continue to utilize more and more AI in our research into biological simulation, building out the necessary safety guardrails is crucial," said Dr. Yurkovich. "This partnership empowers us to move at the speed required for this burgeoning field with the confidence that safety is the number one priority." "The functional safety principles that govern autonomous systems and humanoid robotics apply directly here," said Justin Croyle, Chief Product Officer at Fennec Engineering. "When AI operates in uncharted territory, safety has to be built from first principles rather than inherited from a traditional checklist. That's what this partnership is addressing." Two Organizations, One Shared Mission The Buck Institute is the only independent U.S. research institution solely focused on the connection between aging and chronic disease, with a mission to extend human healthspan. Fennec Engineering brings deep expertise in functional safety and systems validation, with roots in Amazon Robotics and a track record that includes enabling the certification of more than one million robotic systems worldwide. Together, they are building the safety supply chain that allows biological AI to fulfill its potential in precision medicine and longevity research. About the Buck Institute: Its success will ultimately change healthcare. At the Buck, OncoZine aim to end the threat of age-related diseases for this and future generations by bringing together the most capable and passionate scientists from a broad range of disciplines to identify and impede the ways in which OncoZine age. An independent, nonprofit institution, its goal is to increase human healthspan, or the healthy years of life. Globally recognized as the pioneer and leader in efforts to target aging, the number one risk factor for serious diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, macular degeneration, heart disease, and diabetes, the Buck wants to help people live better longer. Learn more at: https://buckinstitute.org About Fennec Engineering: Fennec Engineering builds the safety infrastructure for autonomous systems, robotics, and AI, delivering an end-to-end platform, from concept through certification. OncoZine unify safety across the supply chain, eliminating regulatory guesswork, and helping teams bring certified innovations to market faster. Fennec ensures that safety moves at the speed of innovation. Learn more at https://fennec-engineering.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/fennec-engineering/ Media Contact
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About Buck Institute
Industries
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Grant
Total Funding
$3.5M
Headquarters
Novato, California
Founded
1998
Buck Institute is Hiring for 16 Jobs on Simplify!
Find jobs on Simplify and start your career today