Ana Aslan

Ana Aslan
Ana Aslan in 1970
Born	(1897-01-01)1 January 1897 Brăila, Kingdom of Romania
Died	20 May 1988(1988-05-20) (aged 91) Bucharest, Socialist Republic of Romania
Fields	Gerontology, Geriatrics
Institutions	National Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics (founder)
Alma mater	Faculty of Medicine, Bucharest (1915–1922)
Known for	Gerovital

Ana Aslan (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈana asˈlan]; 1 January 1897 – 20 May 1988) was a Romanian biologist and physician who discovered the anti-aging effects of procaine, based on the drugs Gerovital H3 and Aslavital, which she developed. She is considered to be a pioneer of gerontology and geriatrics in Romania. In 1952, she founded the Geriatric Institute of Bucharest. This institute was the first of its kind in the world and was recognized by the World Health Organization. Although her work was controversial, it received international attention.

Aslan was the youngest of four children, two brothers and two sisters, born to Margarit and Sofia Aslan. Aslan was said to be a very intellectual child, learning to read and write already by age four. At the age of 13, her father died, and her family then moved to Bucharest, Romania. It was in Bucharest where she began her studies. She graduated from the Central School of Bucharest in 1915. The premature death of her father, whom she was close to, was said to be the reason she wanted to become a physician. Although the medical field was not a desirable field for women to enter, Aslan decided that was the path she wanted to pursue and attended the Faculty of Medicine from 1915 to 1922. Her mother did not support this decision of becoming a physician because of financial strains, so Aslan went on a hunger strike until her mother accepted her medical career. During her time in undergraduate studies, Aslan attended to soldiers as a nurse during the First World War.

After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine in 1922, she began working with Daniel Danielopolu who supervised her doctoral thesis. She obtained her M.D. degree in cardiovascular physiology in 1924. Her focus was on physiology and the process of aging. While experimenting on the effects that procaine had on arthritis, Aslan discovered other beneficial effects of this drug. It was this discovery that led to a three-year study and eventual invention of her drug called Gerovital (H3), which she prescribed for the effects of aging. With hesitation from fellow scientists that Gerovital was a “fountain of youth”, Aslan kicked off a research study to prove the results. Over a period of two years, blood samples were taken from 15,000 people, with some of them receiving Gerovital and some receiving a placebo. 40% of the people who took Gerovital had less sick-leave days, and mortality rate from the flu epidemic was 13% in placebo patients while only being 2.7% in patients who took the drug. In 1976, with a pharmacist named Elena Polovrăgeanu, they invented another drug named Aslavital, which was a similar drug to Gerovital aimed to delay the skin aging process.