Our Company and Team
Longevity Diagnostics is a clinical diagnostics company providing affordable and convenient laboratory testing to determine disease risk and individualized nutrition and lifestyle coaching to lower that risk. Our primary clinical focus is the chronic diseases affecting an individual’s longevity and the major causes of death for people over 40 years of age. We assess risk using an individual's health history, our laboratory testing, and evidence-based risk algorithms.
Our testing services are provided by clinical reference laboratories accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP and certified by the Cliical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), with thousands of convenient phlebotomy locations across the United States.
Longevity Diagnostics is a subsidiary of Cardiovascular Research Associates (CVRA), Natick, MA, a company founded to promote cardiovascular disease research, education, and prevention.
Ernst J. Schaefer, MD, FAHA
President and Medical Director
Dr. Schaefer is a graduate of Harvard College, Dartmouth Medical School, and the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (MD). He did a medical residency at Mt. Sinai and an endocrinology fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. For 30 years he was a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, a laboratory director at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, and the director of the Heart Disease Prevention and Lipid Clinic at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. He is an internationally recognized expert in heart disease prevention with over 600 publications. He currently serves as the laboratory director at Boston Heart Diagnostics in Framingham, MA.
Joi A. Gleason, MS, RDN, LDN, IFNCP
Director, Nutrition and Lifestyle Coaching
Joi Gleason is a graduate of San Jose State University (MS, Nutrition) and the Brigham & Women’s Hospital Dietetic Internship Program, Boston, MA. She has served as a clinical nutritionist with Tufts University Hospital. She is a registered dietitian with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, a licensed dietitian nutritionist with the State of Massachusetts, and a certified practitioner with the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy. Joi has also completed training as a Health Fitness Specialist with the American College of Sports Medicine and as a health coach with Wellcoaches®.
Margaret R. Diffenderfer, PhD
Director, Operations
Margaret Diffenderfer is a graduate of the University of Durham, Durham, England (PhD). As a biochemist with more than 30 years of research experience in the areas of lipoprotein metabolism and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk, she has worked closely with Dr. Schaefer and Ms Gleason at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, MA, and has collaborated extensively in multiple publications.
Steven M. Lundahl
Director, Information Technology
Steven Lundahl has 40 years experience in software engineering and IT. He has worked in financial services, energy efficiency, non-profits, and for more than a decade with Dr. Schaefer, Dr. Diffenderfer, and Joi Gleason in the healthcare industry.