Valter Longo

Biogerontologist, director of the USC Longevity Institute

Italian-American biogerontologist and cell biologist at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, where he directs the Longevity Institute. He is known for research on fasting and nutrient-response genes and for developing the fasting-mimicking diet, sold commercially as ProLon by L-Nutra, a company he founded. In 2017 he said he would stop taking consulting fees and donate his company shares to charity.

WHAT TO WATCHFasting-mimicking diet studies in cancer, neurodegenerative, autoimmune, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, plus his books Fasting Cancer (2025) and the forthcoming English edition of Longevity Starts in Childhood.