The last 10 years have seen a revolution in the field of gerontology: Aging is being approached not in terms of expected disease and decline, but through an exploration of factors that might contribute to ongoing health and vitality. John W. Rowe, president and CEO of Aetna Inc., will explain that successful aging is largely determined not by genetic inheritance but by individual lifestyle choices in diet, exercise, the pursuit of mental challenges, self-efficacy and involvement with other people.

Dr. Rowe joined Aetna in September 2000, after serving as president and CEO of Mount Sinai NYU Health, a position he assumed after overseeing the 1998 merger of the Mount Sinai and NYU Medical Centers. Prior to the Mount Sinai NYU Health merger, Dr. Rowe was president of the Mount Sinai Hospital and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He is a professor of medicine and geriatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Before joining Mount Sinai in 1988, Dr. Rowe was a professor of medicine and the founding director of the Division on Aging at Harvard Medical School, and he served as chief of gerontology at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital. He has authored more than 200 scientific publications, primarily in physiology of the aging process, and recently co-authored Successful Aging (Pantheon, 1998) with Robert Kahn, Ph.D. He has received many honors and awards for his research and health policy efforts regarding care of the elderly.

Dr. Rowe was a director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging, and served on the Board of Governors of the American Board of Internal Medicine and as president of the Gerontological Society of America. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

The Cohn Forum is a series of colloquia on issues in health and biomedicine. The Cohn Forum’s Web site is www.rockefeller.edu/pubinfo/cohn.html.

For additional information, please call Ms. Gloria Phipps at (212) 327-8967.