This spring, AFAR will officially launch its Florida Affiliate which
will provide AFAR Research Grants to Florida-based scientists. AFAR's
affiliate network allows for a greater distribution of AFAR Research
Grants to local scientists, thus expanding our efforts to support research
on aging regionally.
Comprised of a regional director, with a board of directors, each
affiliate develops partnerships with area medical schools, like-minded
community groups, foundations and corporations to raise money for local
AFAR Research Grants. AFAR headquarters matches up to two $30,000 grants
and also provides fundraising and public relations support. All local
grant applications are reviewed through AFAR's renowned national review
process.
Area institutions involved in the planning of this affiliate include
the Florida State University, Center on Aging at the University of Miami,
University of Florida, University of South Florida, Nova Southeastern
University, Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and Miami Jewish Home for the
Aged.
AFAR's affiliate network has awarded approximately $720,000 to 12
grantees in the Southeast, upstate New York and Ohio.
For more information about AFAR's affiliates program or to get involved
in the Florida Affiliate, please contact Nancy O'Leary, AFAR's director of
development, at 212-703-9977 or Nancy@afar.org.
Back to top
____________________________________________
Events
AFAR to Host Scientific Conference on the
Biology of Cancer
This October, AFAR will host its annual scientific conference on the
biology of cancer (dates being finalized and will be announced shortly).
The conference will explore fundamental aspects of aging and cancer
processes and their interactions, from the basic research and
translational perspectives. The program will be held in conjunction with
AFAR's annual awards dinner. For more information, please contact Stacey
Harris, AFAR's communications director at 212-703-9977 or Stacey@afar.org.
AFAR Holds Conference on Biomarkers of Aging and Diseases of Aging
Scientists, industry leaders assessed current and futures status of
biomarkers as identifiers of rates of biological aging, predictors of
longevity, and indicators of susceptibility to age-related diseases
On October 2, 2007, more than 200 scientists and industry leaders
attended Seeking Biomarkers of Aging and Diseases of Aging,
a scientific conference sponsored by the American Federation for Aging
Research.
The interactive conference featured presentations highlighting the
resources available for aging biomarker research and the kind of
biomarkers needed to provide improvements to the human condition by
alleviating disease and extending healthy lifespan. A forum with industry
discussed public-private partnerships for the development of more useful
biomarkers and effective interventions that could ultimately identify,
treat and track age-related diseases and disorders.
Read about the
proceedings of the conference.
Richard Hodes, MD, director of the National Institute on Aging,
presented the keynote address, "The Outlook for Biological Research on
Aging." Other speakers included: Stephen L. Helfand, MD, Brown University;
Donald Ingram, PhD, Pennington Biomedical Research Center/Louisiana State
University; Gerald McClearn, PhD, Penn State University; Richard A.
Miller, MD, PhD, University of Michigan; Richard Sprott, PhD, The Ellison
Medical Foundation; and Richard Weindruch, PhD, University of Wisconsin.
A full program listing can be found at http://www.afar.org/biomarkersconference.html.
All speaker presentations can be found as read-only files on our
website. The files are very large, so please make sure to save to your
computer before viewing.
The conference was made possible through educational grants from
Anonymous, Applied Biosystems, AstraZeneca, The Ellison Medical
Foundation, GE Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline, Glenn Foundation for Medical
Research, Merck, Myriad, Nestle, Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, Pfizer,
sanofi-aventis, and the 2007 Dorothy Dillon Eweson Lecture Series.
The meeting was also supported by 1R13AG31693-01 from the National
Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health.
The scientific conference was held in conjunction with AFAR's annual awards dinner,
which honored Richard A. Miller, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and
associate director of the Geriatrics Center at the University of Michigan
and AFAR board member; Diane A. Nixon, AFAR board member; Allen D. Roses,
MD, senior vice president, Pharmacogenetics, GlaxoSmithKline; John
“Launny” Steffens, former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch, and current
managing director of Spring Mountain Capital; and T. Franklin Williams,
MD, professor of medicine emeritus & VA Distinguished Physician,
University of Rochester, former director, The National Institute on Aging
(1983-1991) and AFAR board member (emeritus).
Both events raised more than $300,000 with the proceeds going to
support the AFAR Research Grant program.
2007 Dinner Honorees: John “Launny” Steffens; Diane A. Nixon;
Allen D. Roses, MD; Terrie Fox Wetle, PhD, AFAR President; Richard A.
Miller, MD, PhD; Diana Jacobs Kalman, AFAR Chair; and George M.
Martin, MD, AFAR Scientific Director.
Luigi Ferrucci, MD, PhD, of the National Institute on Aging, speaking
about biomarkers' role in his Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging
Project.
Back to top
_____________________________________________
Spotlight On: The Ellison Medical Foundation
AFAR's
ability to support scientists can only happen through partnerships with
foundations, corporations and individuals, as well as the National
Institute on Aging. We sit down with Richard Sprott, PhD, executive
director of The Ellison Medical Foundation (EMF) who talks about the
Foundation's long association with AFAR and the importance of sustained
support for aging research.
Why support AFAR and aging research?
The world's population, in developed and developing countries, is aging
rapidly. As improved nutrition, public health measures and the widespread
use of antibiotics have produced dramatic increases in life expectancy,
the concomitant growth in the numbers of older persons, in almost all
societies, brings new problems and challenges. An older population
presents the challenges of failing organs, increased frailty, loss of
cognitive ability, and escalating health care costs.
How and why we age are the great mysteries of aging science
(gerontology). Aging research offers the promise of diminishing the
deleterious effects of aging. Understanding basic processes is the best
hope of finding ways to prevent, cure, or put into remission, age related
diseases and disabilities. The resultant increase in health in the later
years of life can be expected to diminish health care costs for aging
societies.
Opportunities for scientists to exercise their imaginations and explore
new directions are remarkably hard to find within today's research
framework. Science itself is usually a painstakingly slow, deliberate, and
expensive process. Research progress is hard to direct and even harder to
predict. Progress is usually made by incremental advances in knowledge
that build on current knowledge. The U.S. scientific infrastructure is
generally geared to supporting the slow, steady march of progress.
Investigators frequently have difficulty obtaining financial support
through traditional sources to follow up novel ideas or observations that
challenge current dogma. Yet these are the very creative opportunities
that may foster a “quantum leap” or “paradigm shift” in scientific
understanding, eventually contributing to advances in human health.
The Ellison Medical Foundation's goal is to respond to that need,
providing scientists with the resources, freedom, and flexibility to
pursue high-risk research that could have a scientific impact worldwide.
We began our association with AFAR in 2002 when we wanted to develop
innovative programs for post-doctoral fellows who were approaching the
career stage where they could begin to become independent. We called them
Senior Post-docs. This is a very critical stage in a scientists life and
the stage where the freedom to develop their own scientific endeavors can
make a career choice long lasting. AFAR already had in place a set of
policies and a large and extremely effective review process for young
investigators in aging. It made great sense for us to partner with AFAR
rather than develop a separate review capacity. Since I also felt that
such a program would be advantageous to AFAR, collaboration was a
no-brainer.
What do you see as the priorities for scientific research in the
field of aging?
Basic research is often the orphan in the federal research funding
priority array. No congressperson thinks he/she or his constituents dies
of basic biology. They all think they die of disease. In fact we all die
of basic biology which underlies the diseases. AFAR, EMF and the Glenn
Foundation for Medical Research are the only philanthropic organizations
that are providing an alternative to federal funding for basic aging
research. Together we provide almost one-third as much funding for such
research as does the National Institute on Aging. The application of
cutting edge, creative new research has enormous potential to improve
lives just as the numbers of aging persons increases dramatically.
Personally, I think our major priority has to be improving the quality of
life in the latter stages rather than extending life to great ages.
Why do you think research on aging is important?
As our societies age, age dependent diseases impose increasingly
important constraints on individual function and on our society's freedom
to allocate resources. Only research offers real possibilities of reducing
the personal and societal burdens of infirmity and disease. For example,
understanding the complex interdependence between aging and cancer could
lead to far more effective therapies, which in turn could dramatically
reduce the cost of treatment of cancer, the lost productivity from illness
and death, and the personal tragedy of death by cancer. Multiply this
scenario by all the diseases of aging and the impact can be staggering.
What has come out of your collaboration with AFAR?
Our partnership with AFAR benefits young scientists through the
post-doctoral programs and more senior scientists through the Julie Martin
Mid-Career Award in Aging Research. While the programs were established in
order to promote creativity, they have become an important resource in a
time of shrinking resources. Our partnership with AFAR is an important
part of our overall strategy to help sustain as many developing
investigators of aging as can survive the current funding shortage.
Partnership with AFAR helps both organizations maximize the impact of
funding by maximizing the quality of the review process using AFAR
reviewers and minimizing the administrative burdens by combining our
programs into a single, highly effective program. I think the result is to
multiply the impact of individual programs and to set a very high standard
for philanthropic intervention in the scientific funding landscape.
Read about AFAR and the Ellison Medical Foundation's most recent
collaboration - http://www.afar.org/ellison08release.html.
Dr. Sprott is the first executive director of The Ellison
Medical Foundation (www.ellisonfoundation.org),
the largest private foundation source of funding for the biology of aging.
In that capacity, he directs the Foundation's grant-making programs,
including the distribution of nearly $38,000,000 per year in grant funds
given for aging research. Dr. Sprott was formerly the director of the
Biology of Aging programs at the National Institute on Aging.
Back to top
_____________________________________________
Grants Update
Overview
Since 1981, AFAR has provided approximately $100 million to close to
2,400 new investigators and students through its series of grant programs.
Deadlines have passed for the 2008 grants program. 2009 grant programs and
eligibility will be announced in the summer 2008.
You can read about the recipients of AFAR's 2007 awards program on our website.
To learn more about AFAR grants programs, visit the AFAR web site at http://afar.org/grants.html or
contact the AFAR grants department at 212-703-9977. If you would like to
be placed on a mailing list to receive periodic updates on AFAR grant
programs, please sign up via this
form.
Meeting Dates
The 2008 Beeson Annual Meeting will be held June 19-22, 2008 at the
Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa at the Santa Ana Pueblo Reservation in
New Mexico.
The AFAR Grantee Conference has been scheduled for September 6-9, 2008
at Fess Parker's Double Tree Resort in Santa Barbara, California.
AFAR Grantees in the News
Many AFAR grantees are gaining attention for their research in
high-profile media, helping AFAR better communicate to the public the
importance of supporting such research. Some highlights:
The research of 2000 Pfizer/AFAR Research Grant recipient and
University of California, Irvine researcher Frank LaFerla, PhD,
about the restorative effects of stem cells to reduce memory problems, was
covered in New Scientist and Scientific American.com in November
2007.
On October 31, 2007, Gordon Lithgow, PhD, of the Buck Institute
and 2006 Glenn/AFAR Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Award recipient,
Gawain McColl, PhD, formerly of the Buck Institute and now at the
Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria, Australia and 2003
Glenn/AFAR Postdoctoral Fellow, and David Killilea, PhD, of
Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute and 2003 Glenn/AFAR
Postdoctoral Fellow, were featured in Science Daily. The article
discussed the researchers' work using lithium, a drug to treat mood
affective disorders, to increase lifespan in nematode worms.
In an article in the Los Angeles Times on October 8, 2007, 2000
Pfizer/AFAR Research Grant recipient, James Lah, MD, PhD, of Emory
University, discusses potential genetic markers for diagnosing Alzheimer's
disease.
In an October 7, 2007 article in The New York Times, 2000 Beeson
Scholar, Jason Karlawish, MD, from the University of Pennsylvania,
points out that a diagnosis for a mental disease does not mean the person
is incapable of working, making decisions, or voting.
Anne Louise Oaklander, MD, PhD, of the Massachusetts General
Hospital and 1999 Beeson Scholar, was featured on CNN.com on September 24,
2007. The feature focused on treating patients with chronic pain that do
not have an obvious cause of the pain, and do not respond to medicine.
Research published in the journal Cell by David Sinclair,
PhD, of Harvard Medical School and 2000 AFAR Research Grant recipient,
was featured on MSNBC.com on September 20, 2007. Dr. Sinclair's research
shows that certain genes, SIRT3 and SIRT4, can help keep our cells healthy
and youthful and suggest that one day a pill may replicate the beneficial
effects of caloric restriction in extending healthy life.
Additional listings can be found on our website.
For more information or to inform us of about to be published studies
and upcoming media interviews, please contact Stacey Harris at
212-703-9977 or stacey@afar.org.
Back to top
_____________________________________________
Other News and Events
- AFAR, in concert with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
hosted Aging, Genome
Maintenance, and Metabolism on December 6, 2007. The conference
brought together internationally renowned leaders in aging research.
This conference was supported by the Glenn Foundation for Medical
Research, The Pack Family Foundation and grants from the National
Institutes of Health.
- Richard A. Miller, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and associate
director of the Geriatrics Center at the University of Michigan and AFAR
board member gave the Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction Lecture --
Live Short and Prosper – Aging Secrets of the Snell Dwarf Mouse
-- at the 60th annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of
America in San Francisco on November 17, 2007.
- AFAR executive director Stephanie Lederman was an invited
participant at the Keck Futures Initiative conference, The Future of
Healthspan: Demography, Evolution, Medicine and Bioengineering, that
took place November 14-16, 2007 in Irvine, California. The conference
brought together scientists, engineers, medical researchers and
representatives from private and public funding organizations,
university and government leadership to stimulate conversations about
funding, communicating and supporting interdisciplinary research.
- AFAR welcomes new board member Joan Murtagh Frankel, Esq., a partner
at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP.
Back to top
_____________________________________________
Support our Scientists
AFAR, through its partnerships with
the National Institute on Aging, foundations, corporations and
individuals, has supported scientists at the earliest points in their
careers helping them get a foot in the door to begin research careers and
conduct the groundbreaking research that have made a significant impact on
the health and well-being of all of us as we age. To learn how you can
help, visit us at our
website or contact Nancy O'Leary at 212-703-9977 or nancy@afar.org.
Back to
top
