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Center for aging research, education will specialize in biological causes of growing old
By Diane Ainsworth, Public Affairs

10 Jan 2001 | Although scientists can't push back the hands of time yet, they are determined to understand the biological processes underlying old age.

To encourage a new approach to studies of aging and a variety of age-related diseases, such as heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, cancer, cataracts and neuro-degenerative illnesses, Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have established the Center for Research and Education on Aging.

"It is widely recognized that aging is an extremely fertile ground for research and that there is an enormous potential for a Berkeley-based effort to understand and control aging, but the resources to do that are alarmingly scant," said Judy Campisi, a cell biologist in the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Life Sciences Division and a leading authority on aging research.

"Often more than a year will go by between the proposal of a good research idea and the time it is finally funded," said Campisi. "A major goal of the new center will be to establish research grants for students and postdoctoral graduates who are interested in pursuing pilot studies or experimental, higher risk projects in aging."

Campisi has teamed up with Paola Timiras, a Berkeley professor emeritus and pioneer in the study of hormonal effects on aging, to create the new center, which will focus on research in the basic mechanisms of aging. The two will co-direct the center with a governing board, which includes Hal Sternberg of BioTime, a Berkeley-based private research firm that has set up the first endowment, George Brooks of Berkeley, Gregory Cole of UCLA and David Gilbert of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. BioTime's modest endowment was established to honor Timiras for her lifetime of accomplishment in aging research and education.

"Aging is the largest single risk for a multitude of diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, cataracts and macular degeneration, muscle- and neuro-degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and others," Timiras pointed out. "If we prevented or cured any one of these diseases, we would extend the years of a person's healthy life, and possibly people's lifespans, by a few years.

"If, however, we prevented or ameliorated the underlying aging process or processes, the extension of a person's healthy life is likely to be much greater," she said. "Consequently, at least for humans in developed countries, understanding the basic mechanisms of aging holds much greater potential for improving health than understanding and curing individual age-associated disease."

Based at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Berkeley campus, the Center for Research and Education on Aging will support long-term research projects and pilot studies that will increase scientists' knowledge of the aging process and lead to effective interventions. The center will cater to promising young students and postdoctoral scientists, as well as creative, established scientists who are dedicated to understanding and controlling aging.

"Some of the endowments will go toward the acquisition of research resources, such as equipment and core facilities, to support cooperative, synergistic and sometimes high-risk endeavors," Campisi said.

The Berkeley and Bay Area communities are ripe for such a center, she said. The campus's long history of aging research and education, along with an exceptionally high concentration of world-class biologists in the Bay Area have, in fact, provided some of the impetus for creation of the center.

Berkeley was among the first universities to offer undergraduate and graduate courses in aging. Currently, in addition to a number of courses on aging in several departments, the campus offers an interdisciplinary course on advances in aging that is open to the public. Additionally, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has a training grant from the National Institute on Aging to support postdoctoral fellows and hosts it's annual Summer Training Course on Experimental Aging Research on site every three years.

"We want to use the new center as an educational tool to educate both the lay public and the scientific community about modern aging research," Timiras said. "All of these activities will be aimed at engaging budding young scientists and accomplished senior scientists in the pursuit of new research into the causes of aging."

Visit http://crea.berkeley.edu/ for information on the center, its programs and funding opportunities.

 


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