In collaboration with Wake Forest School of Medicine, AFAR will organize and coordinate a new Research Centers Collaborative Network (RCCN) for the National Institute on Aging of the National Insitutes of Health.
This initiative is supported with funds expected to total $2.5 million over three years.
The new research network, the first-ever of its kind, will bring together scientists from the NIA’s six center programs focused on addressing a wide range of issues affecting older adults. While the six center programs have made significant contributions to the field of aging research over the years, the RCCN will help them broaden their scope and effectiveness.
The RCCN will spur multidisciplinary efforts in aging research across the NIA centers through five complementary strategies: conferences, pilot programs, early career faculty education, web-based resource identification tools, and fundraising/ proposal development.
The six NIA center programs in the RCCN consist of 83 individual centers and five coordinating centers. They are:
• Alzheimer’s Disease Core and Research Centers, focused on neuroscience, with 31 centers. The University of Washington serves as coordinating center for this program.
• Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging, focused on behavioral and social research, with 11 centers. The University of Michigan serves as coordinating center for this program.
• Nathan Shock Centers for Excellence in the Biology of Aging, with six centers. AFAR serves as the coordinating center for this program.
• Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers (OAICs) focused on geriatrics and gerontology, with 15 centers. Wake Forest School of Medicine serves as the coordinating center for this program.
• Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR), focused on behavioral and social research, with seven centers. UCLA serves as coordinating center for this program.
• Roybal Centers for Translational Research on Aging, focused on behavioral and social research, with 13 centers. This program has no designated coordinating center. The University of Illinois at Chicago is filling this function at present.
AFAR Executive Director Stephanie Lederman, Ed.M., will serve as co-principal investigator with with Stephen B. Kritchevsky, Ph.D., co-director of the Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and principal investigator of the Wake Forest Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC).
“AFAR is honored to partner with the OAIC and the NIA to foster new collaborations between diverse center programs to address common problems,” notes Lederman. “Since its founding more than 35 years ago, AFAR has recognized that helping people live healthier and longer lives requires building bridges across disciplines.”
Learn more about the RCCN initiatiative in a related press release here.
