AFAR has been selected by the National Institute of Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support and lead the infrastructure of three of its initiatives:

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Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center

In 2017, AFAR was selected by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) as the first Nathan Shock Centers for Excellence in the Biology of Aging Coordinating Center. The NIA is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and its eight

Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging provide leadership and technical support in the pursuit of basic research into the biology of aging.

As the Coordinating Center, AFAR has received first-year funding of $444,018 with a total of $1.3 million expected over a three-year award period.

As the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center, AFAR will help the Centers coordinate their activities more efficiently, as well as communicate the capabilities and achievements of the individual Centers to other aging researchers and the general public. AFAR will help enhance the Centers’ external communication with the lay public, expand information resources, and serve as a scientific exchange forum among the sites, as well as work with Center directors to develop and implement data quality control and sharing between centers and with the scientific community at large.

Read a related press release here.
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Research Centers Collaborative Network

In 2018, AFAR was selected, in collaboration with Wake Forest School of Medicine, to 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.

Read a related press release here.
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Clin-STAR Coordinating Center

In 2019, the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, announced its award of nearly $4.5 million over the next five years in support of a new Clin-STAR (Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research) Coordinating Center.

AFAR will serve as the Coordinating Center’s National Program Office; additionally, three Academic Resource Centers at Yale University School of Medicine; University of California, San Francisco; Johns Hopkins University comprise the Coordinating Center.

The Clin-STAR Coordinating Center will develop a multi-faceted, national platform to promote and enrich the career development, training and trans-disciplinary research of clinician-investigators across the U.S., particularly early stage investigators who are committed to careers in aging research.

The Center will build on the collective and complementary experience of four principal investigators, senior administrative leadership at AFAR, and a team that includes more than 20 clinician investigators from a diverse array of 20 academic institutions across the country.

Read a related press release here.
Visit Clin-STAR website