Dr. Aaron Bender is an Associate Program Officer for the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s Crohn’s Disease Program. In this role, Aaron assists with the program’s therapeutics grants portfolio, which incorporates principles of precision medicine to optimize current therapies and develop new approaches to delivering patient-specific interventions with the goals of promoting long-term remission and improving patient outcomes.

Prior to joining Helmsley, Aaron developed a strategy to integrate genomic, metabolomic, and phenotypic data into networks that can explain differences in symptoms in individuals with rare metabolic diseases. His previous research focused on models of cellular aging, metabolic syndrome, and neurodegeneration.

Aaron earned a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences in the Genetics Department of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, where he studied the decision-making processes of nonhuman primates. Outside of work, Aaron represents his neighbors in the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Coalition and organizes service and advocacy events throughout the year.