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Stubbings G, Farrell S, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K, Rutenberg A. Informative Frailty Indices from binarized biomarkers. Biogerontology 2020; 21: 345-355. doi: 10.1007/s10522-020-09863-1. Epub 2020 Mar 10.

 

Blodgett JM, Theou O, Mitnitski A, Howlett SE, Rockwood K. Associations between a laboratory frailty index and adverse health outcomes across age and sex. Aging Med (Milton). 2019 Mar 8;2(1):11-17. doi: 10.1002/agm2.12055.

 

Farrell SG, Mitnitski AB, Theou O, Rockwood K, Rutenberg AD. Probing the network structure of health deficits in human aging. 2018 Phys Rev E 98: 032302.

 

Mousa A, Savva GM, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K, Jagger C, Brayne C, Matthews FE. Is frailty a stable predictor of mortality across time? Evidence from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies. Age Ageing. 2018 Jun 6. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afy077. [Epub ahead of print]

 

Rutenberg AD, Mitnitski AB, Farrell SG, Rockwood K. Unifying aging and frailty through complex dynamical networks. Exp Gerontol. 2018 Jul 1;107:126-129. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2017.08.027. Epub 2017 Aug 25. Review.

 

Hubbard RE, Peel NM, Samanta M, Gray LC, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K.  Frailty status at admission to hospital predicts multiple adverse outcomes. Age Ageing. 2017 Sep 1;46(5):801-806. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afx081.

 

Hogan DB, Maxwell CJ, Afilalo J, Arora RC, Bagshaw SM, Basran J, Bergman H, Bronskill SE, Carter CA, Dixon E, Hemmelgarn B, Madden K, Mitnitski A, Rolfson D, Stelfox HT, Tam-Tham H, Wunsch H. A Scoping Review of Frailty and Acute Care in Middle-Aged and Older Individuals with Recommendations for Future Research. Can Geriatr J. 2017 Mar 31;20(1):22-37.

 

Rockwood K, Howlett SE, Hoffman D, Schindler R, Mitnitski A. Clinical meaningfulness of Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscale change in relation to goal attainment in patients on cholinesterase inhibitors. Alzheimers Dement. 2017 Mar 21. pii: S1552-5260(17)30090-0.

 

Mitnitski AB, Rutenberg AD, Farrell S, Rockwood K. Aging, frailty and complex networks. Biogerontology. 2017 Mar 2. doi: 10.1007/s10522-017-9684-x. Review

 

Rockwood K, Blodgett JM, Theou O, Sun MH, Feridooni HA, Mitnitski A, Rose RA, Godin J, Gregson E, Howlett SE. A Frailty Index Based On Deficit Accumulation Quantifies Mortality Risk in Humans and in Mice. Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 21;7:43068.

 

Moskalev A, Anisimov V, Aliper A, Artemov A, Asadullah K, Belsky D,… Mitnitski A, … Zhavoronkov A. A review of the biomedical innovations for healthy longevity. Aging (Albany NY). 2017 Jan 29;9(1):7-25. doi: 10.18632/aging.101163.

 

Hatheway OL, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K. Frailty affects the initial treatment response and time to recovery of mobility in acutely ill older adults admitted to hospital. Age Ageing. 2017 Jan 18. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afw257. [Epub ahead of print]

 

Farrell SG, Mitnitski AB, Rockwood K, Rutenberg AD. Network model of human aging: Frailty limits and information measures. Phys Rev E. 2016 Nov;94(5-1):052409.
 

Mitnitski A, Howlett SE, Rockwood K. Heterogeneity of Human Aging and Its Assessment. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2017 Jul 1;72(7):877-884. 

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Rockwood K, Blodgett JM, Theou O, Sun MH, Feridooni HA, Mitnitski A, Rose RA, Godin J, Gregson E, Howlett SE. A Frailty Index Based On Deficit Accumulation Quantifies Mortality Risk in Humans and in Mice. Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 21;7:43068.

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Hajizadeh M, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K.Socioeconomic gradient in health in Canada: Is the gap widening or narrowing? Health Policy. 2016 Sep;120(9):1040-50.

 

Bäckman K, Joas E, Falk H, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K, Skoog I. Changes in the Lethality of Frailty Over 30 Years: Evidence From Two Cohorts of 70-Year-Olds in Gothenburg Sweden. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2017 Jul 1;72(7):945-950.

 

Yang F, Gu D, Mitnitski A. Frailty and life satisfaction in Shanghai older adults: The roles of age and social vulnerability.
Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2016 Nov-Dec;67:68-73. doi: 10.1016/j.archger.2016.07.001

 

Armstrong JJ, Godin J, Launer LJ, White LR, Mitnitski A, Rockwood K, Andrew MK. Changes in Frailty Predict Changes in Cognition in Older Men: The Honolulu-Asia Aging Study. J Alzheimers Dis. 2016 Jun 15.

Taneja S, Mitnitski AB, Rockwood K, Rutenberg AD. Dynamical network model for age-related health deficits and mortality.
Phys Rev E. 2016 Feb;93(2-1):022309. Epub 2016 Feb 29.

Armstrong JJ, Mitnitski A, Andrew MK, Launer LJ, White LR, Rockwood K. Cumulative impact of health deficits, social vulnerabilities, and protective factors on cognitive dynamics in late life: a multistate modeling approach.  Alzheimers Res Ther. 2015 Jun 5;7(1):38. doi: 10.1186/s13195-015-0120-7. eCollection 2015.

Mitnitski A, Rockwood K. The rate of aging: the rate of deficit accumulation does not change over the adult life span.
Biogerontology. 2016 Feb;17(1):199-204. 


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Expertise

 

  • Mathematical modeling /computer simulation of complex biomedical systems

  • Mathematical modeling of aging in individuals and populations

  • Advances data analysis/ data mining

 

Background

 

I am an applied mathematician born and educated in Russia (M Electrical Engineering, and PhD in Theoretical Mechanics/Applied Mathematics,

St-Petersburg 1973), joined the Medical School at Dalhousie in 2002. I am a Fellow of the American Gerontological Society (GSA), have also received several distinctions,including a prestigious Dalhousie University Research Professorship (2011), given only to a limited number of individuals. I am a three time

recipient of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CHIR) operating grants as Principal Investigator of a program for “Mathematical modeling of fitness and

frailty in relation to biological age in individuals and populations” ($392,000, 2011-2014). 

 

I have published over 150 peer reviewed papers (most of them in last 10 years, some highly cited), and have been a peer reviewer for as many as 30 journals (including Mech Ageing Dev, J Gerontol, J Theor Biol, Front in Genet, Phys Life Rev, Exp gerontol, Biogerontology), and have delivered many presentations at

the national and international scientific meetings. I serve as an Associate Editor for Science Reports, Frontiers in Public Health (Epidemiology), BMC Geriatrics, and Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research (CGGR). I am a member of the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Reviewers College (2017-2020).

 

As part of a longstanding collaboration with Professor Kenneth Rockwood (Department of Medicine at Dalhousie University), we developed an integrated

measure of human health known as the Frailty Index (FI, Mitntiski et al., 2001), which now has numerous applications in a variety of areas, including

epidemiology, clinical medicine, biology, and most recently even in macro-economics.  

 

First suggested as an empirical means of quantifying individual aging rates (a proxy measure of aging, Mitnitski et al., The ScientificWorld 2001) and as an

indicator of frailty, this index allows understanding of the complex stochastic processes of the interactions between the organism and its environment

(Mitnitski et al., Biogerontology 2013). Most importantly, we demonstrated that age related changes in the time of recovery after stresses (of various nature) explain the major patterns of health related deficits accumulation with aging.  As a robust health indicator, FI can be used for the evaluation of the biological age in individuals (Mitniski and Rockwood, J Gerontol Biol Scie 2013; Mitnitski et al. J Gerontol Biol Sci 2016). 

 

The statistical mechanics of these processes is currently being developed in a large-scale computer model, in collaboration with Prof. Andrew Rutenberg

(Department of Physics at Dalhousie University). See our recent publications: Taneja et al. Phys Rev E. 2016 Feb;93(2-1):022309. Farrell et al. Phys Rev E. 2016 Nov;94(5-1):052409. Mitnitski et al. Biogerontology. 2017 Mar 2. doi: 10.1007/s10522-017-9684-x.

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