Building on more than four decades of relationships with research institutions, federal programs, and private funders, the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is uniquely poised to be a liaison and leader in increasing attention to geroscience: a groundbreaking biomedical research approach which proposes that by treating the biological processes of aging—not just age-related diseases—we can stay healthier longer.
The biological processes of aging are the greatest risk factors for many chronic diseases and disabilities that affect us all as we grow older. Yet, support from the public and private sectors for research into age-related diseases (such as Cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Diabetes) has not fully intersected with support for research into the biology of aging.
AFAR has launched the Amplifying Geroscience Initiative in order to educate policymakers about the broad and potentially transformative benefits of geroscience on older citizens’ health and our nation’s economy.
Below, please find updates on our progress.
AFAR has submitted comments to the Office of Management and Budget regarding proposed revisions to the Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance. While AFAR supports transparency, accountability, and responsible stewardship of federal funds, we are concerned that several provisions, if applied to NIH and other federal science agencies without revision, could weaken scientific peer review, disrupt ongoing research, and create new administrative barriers for biomedical research.
As seen below, AFAR’s comments emphasize the importance of preserving NIH’s expert-driven, merit-based review system; protecting ongoing peer-reviewed research from abrupt termination; avoiding the use of indirect cost rates as a proxy for scientific merit; maintaining legitimate international scientific collaboration; and allowing reasonable costs for publication, conference participation, and scientific dissemination.
Researchers and institutions who wish to comment may submit their own response directly through Regulations.gov. The proposed rule and comment portal are available here.
The comment period closes on July 15.
"To Whom It May Concern:
On behalf of the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), thank you for the opportunity to comment on OMB's proposed revisions to the Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance.
AFAR is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the biology of aging. Since 1981, AFAR has awarded more than $225 million in grants, building the next generation of scientists and accelerating discoveries that extend healthspan and reduce age-related disease.
AFAR strongly supports transparency, accountability, and stewardship of taxpayer dollars. However, several provisions, if applied to NIH without revision, could weaken the expert-driven, merit-based grantmaking system that has made the U.S. the global leader in biomedical discovery.
NIH-funded research is a long-term investment in health and innovation. Many major advances have emerged from investigator-initiated research whose value wasn't obvious at award—especially true in geroscience, which studies the biology of aging underlying Alzheimer's, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and frailty, shifting medicine toward preventing multiple chronic conditions at once rather than treating diseases individually.
AFAR urges OMB to revise the rule to preserve scientific peer review, protect ongoing research, avoid using indirect cost rates as a proxy for merit, and ensure administrative requirements don't impair scientific collaboration and dissemination.
First, AFAR is concerned the merit review provisions could create a parallel process where peer review recommendations are displaced by non-scientific considerations. NIH already has rigorous review including peer review, programmatic review, conflict-of-interest protections, and Institute/Center oversight. Award decisions should remain grounded in scientific merit, public health significance, feasibility, qualifications, innovation, and mission alignment.
AFAR recommends OMB clarify that pre-issuance review for NIH should focus on legal compliance, eligibility, risk management, conflicts, and alignment with the funding opportunity's purpose—not override peer review absent a documented, award-specific basis. Vague terms such as "anti-American values" should be replaced with clear, objective, administrable standards.
Second, AFAR is concerned by the proposal that, "all else being equal," preference be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates. This should not apply to NIH awards. Indirect cost rates are not a measure of scientific quality or institutional integrity—they reflect negotiated costs for facilities, compliance, animal care, clinical infrastructure, data security, and biosafety essential to rigorous research. Using them as a selection preference could penalize institutions with the infrastructure needed for high-quality science. AFAR recommends OMB remove this provision for research grants or clarify that indirect cost rates may not factor into merit review or award selection unless expressly authorized by statute.
Third, AFAR urges OMB to protect ongoing biomedical research from broad discretionary suspension or termination. Such research often involves longitudinal cohorts, clinical studies, animal models, and multi-year data collection. Sudden disruption wastes prior federal investment, harms participants, compromises irreplaceable datasets, and damages early-career investigators—a particular concern in aging research, where studies of healthspan and resilience require long-term follow-up. Termination should be limited to clearly defined bases: material noncompliance, loss of eligibility, documented integrity concerns, lack of appropriated funds, or scientific infeasibility. A general change in Administration priorities should not, by itself, justify terminating an ongoing peer-reviewed award.
Fourth, AFAR supports strong safeguards for research security and intellectual property but urges OMB to preserve legitimate international scientific collaboration. Aging research often benefits from unique cohorts, population data, and biological samples not available in the U.S. alone. OMB should distinguish between restrictions on countries or activities raising security concerns and ordinary collaboration with trusted partners. NIH should retain the ability to support U.S.-led projects with international components when justified and reviewed.
Finally, AFAR urges OMB to preserve reasonable costs for publication, conference participation, professional memberships, and scientific dissemination—core mechanisms by which findings are validated, replicated, and translated into future discovery and clinical practice.
AFAR shares OMB's interest in accountability and stewardship of federal funds. However, the rule should be revised to ensure these goals do not undermine the merit-based, stable research enterprise that has produced extraordinary returns for the American people.
Thank you for considering these comments.
AFAR is pleased to share that the President’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget request includes $25 million for the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support research on the biomarkers of aging. Biomarkers are measurable biological signals, often from blood, that can indicate how the body is aging and whether an intervention is having an effect. Unlike many disease areas, aging research has lacked widely accepted, validated biomarker endpoints, which forces studies to rely on slow clinical outcomes that can take years to observe.
The HHS Budget in Brief report outlines:
"Understanding the Biomarkers for Aging and Disease: Geroscience is a growing field focused on the discovery and translation of methods and interventions to prevent, minimize, or reverse age-related changes in the body that diminish health and quality of life for older people. The FY 2027 budget includes $25 million for the National Institute on Aging to advance the understanding of the causal biomarkers of aging and disease and elevate interventions that interrupt the drivers of aging through diet, physical activities, and pharmacology."
This milestone builds on AFAR’s continued educational efforts through Amplifying Geroscience, working to ensure that geroscience remains a federal priority, supporting researchers and advancing progress toward healthy aging for all. AFAR is also grateful for the collective efforts of peer organizations that have been advocating for the increased support for geroscience that this budget request represents.
On October 28, 2025, AFAR recently joined a record 454 organizations in signing the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research’s letter to Congress. The letter urged for robust funding for the NIH and Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA–H) in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, and support for sustained federal investment in biomedical research.
AFAR is pleased to share that the Fiscal Year 2026 House Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill demonstrates Congress’s continued recognition of geroscience’s promise and the importance of investing in the basic biology of aging. The appropriations report includes language supported through AFAR’s federal advocacy efforts that encourages the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to prioritize funding for the Division of Aging Biology and expand geroscience research.
The report also emphasizes the need to support the next generation of aging researchers, encouraging NIA to increase opportunities for postdoctoral researchers and junior faculty in the field. This recognition aligns with AFAR’s ongoing commitment to strengthening the talent pipeline in aging research while advancing translational efforts to close the healthspan-lifespan gap.
Through Amplifying Geroscience, AFAR continues working to ensure that geroscience remains a federal priority, supporting researchers and advancing progress toward healthy aging for all.
AFAR is pleased to share that two pieces of “report language” have been included in the Senate’s version of the federal fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill that funds the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This is the result of meetings in Spring 2024 arranged by AFAR with staff from key members of Congress to seek their support in urging the NIH to prioritize research in geroscience.
The two items of language are as follows:
This bill is still awaiting final action by Congress, but it is considered “must-pass” legislation and AFAR’s requests are well positioned for inclusion.
New Funding Opportunity at DoD for FY2024
Thanks to advocacy efforts by AFAR's Amplifying Geroscience initiative, the Department of Defense’s Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) will include geroscience in the list of research areas that are eligible for program funding for the first time. In fiscal year 2024, Congress provided $370 million for the PRMRP. Historically, eligible research topics for the PRMRP have ranged from congenital heart disease to suicide prevention, but they had never included anything related to longevity. AFAR made the case that research in this area could provide a wide range of benefits for the Department of Defense, including 1) improving combat casualty care, (2) increasing the time of service, and (3) addressing the long-term consequences of military service. Those efforts paid off in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill for defense when Congress added “accelerated aging processes associated with military service” to the PRMRP.
NIH Support for Early Career Investigators
AFAR succeeded in securing congressional “report language” in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill for NIH that encourages the National Institute on Aging to prioritize support for early career investigators in geroscience. The language is as follows:
Geroscience—Recent advances in geroscience suggest it may be possible to prevent or treat a wide range of adult-onset health concerns, including functional declines such as frailty and lost resilience, and overt diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and many others. This could be achieved by slowing or reversing certain genetic, molecular, and cellular hallmarks of aging discovered through research on the basic biology of aging. The Committee strongly urges the NIA to prioritize funding for geroscience research. The Committee also understands that the enormous promise of this field is limited by a shortage of investigators with expertise in the biology of aging and the clinical translation of basic research findings. Therefore, NIA should increase support for early career investigators, especially postdoctoral researchers and junior faculty, to help attract, retain, and develop top talent in the field of geroscience. Finally, the Committee encourages the NIA to increase funding for basic and translational research in aging to provide more options and test more treatments as quickly as possible.
Research on Biomarkers and Epigenetic Reprogramming at ARPA-H
AFAR also succeeded in securing report language in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a recently created federal agency modeled on DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
Geroscience—Geroscience research is a revolutionary way to approach health and aligns well with the mission of ARPA–H to identify and invest in high-risk, high-reward research projects that have the potential to transform healthcare and improve public health. By uncovering new insights into the underlying causes of age-related diseases, geroscience research could lead to treatments and therapies that offer the possibility of improving people’s ‘‘healthspan,’’ so they remain healthier longer, and address the growing burden of age-related diseases on society. The Committee urges ARPA–H to prioritize two areas of geroscience research that could advance the field dramatically: biomarkers and epigenetic reprogramming. Discovering and validating biomarkers for aging would significantly improve the efficacy of interventions, while epigenetic reprogramming of cellular age could slow down or even reverse the aging process and thereby prevent or delay the entire panoply of age-related diseases.
Thanks to advocacy efforts by AFAR's Amplifying Geroscience initiative, Congress is now directing NIH to tabulate how much money it spends each year on geroscience research. This has been one of AFAR’s top federal policy priorities.
Although several Institutes and Centers at NIH support research on geroscience, the agency does not currently track the amount of funding it provides—limiting NIH’s ability to address research gaps and monitor progress over time. But in the recently enacted fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill for NIH, Congress “directs NIH to establish a Research, Condition and Disease Categorization category for research related to geroscience.”
AFAR looks forward to providing additional information about NIH funding levels for geroscience when they become available.
In response to advocacy efforts by AFAR, Congress urged the NIH in 2022 to issue a report that describes “current NIH research focused on geroscience and future plans in this area.” We are pleased to announce that NIH submitted the report to Congress in the fall of 2023. The 16-page report provides an overview of NIH-wide efforts, examples of NIH-funded research, and a summary of future opportunities.
AFAR is pleased to announce that through the efforts and requests of its Amplifying Geroscience Initiative, the U.S. Senate recently urged the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Advanced Projects Research Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and the Defense Department (DoD) to prioritize geroscience. The Senate issued this guidance to the agencies through “report language” accompanying the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills.
Highlights of the language include recommending that the NIA increase its support for early-stage investigators in geroscience and that ARPA-H prioritize research on biomarkers related to aging and epigenetic reprogramming. The Senate also instructed DoD to add “accelerated aging processes related to military service” to its Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP). If this provision is enacted into law later this year, researchers will be able to apply for geroscience grants from the PRMRP for the first time.
These victories resulted from virtual meetings that AFAR arranged in the spring of 2023 between AFAR-affiliated researchers and dozens of congressional staff from both parties.
AFAR, through the Amplifying Geroscience Initiative, urged Congress throughout 2022 to direct the NIH and FDA to prioritize geroscience. We are delighted to announce that our efforts were successful.
On December 23, 2022, Congress passed a $1.7 trillion fiscal year 2023 spending package that funds the federal government through September 2023. As part of the funding bill, Congress included report language that provides guidance to the federal agencies. At AFAR’s request, Congress included the following language for the NIH and FDA. This is an excellent capstone to AFAR’s first year educating members of Congress on the promise and power of geroscience. The Amplifying Geroscience Initiative now looks forward to 2023 and the FY 2024 appropriations process.
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill
Office of the NIH Director:
“Geroscience—The Committee applauds NIH for recognizing the importance of geroscience to a wide range of chronic conditions and diseases by creating the Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet), an effort to identify and characterize the differences in senescent cells across the body, within the Common Fund. While NIA serves as the lead Institute for geroscience, programs such as SenNet demonstrate how all Institutes and Centers benefit from a greater understanding of this field, given the wide range of chronic conditions and diseases that are influenced by the biology of aging. To date, however, NIH has not analyzed which topics in geroscience are currently being addressed across the Institutes and Centers or how much funding the Institutes and Centers are using to support this research. The lack of this information limits NIH’s ability to address research gaps in a strategic way. Therefore, the Committee encourages NIH to submit a report within 180 days of enactment of this Act that describes current NIH research focused on geroscience and future plans in this area. The Committee would also welcome exploration of a trans-NIH initiative. Such an initiative might include increased funding for basic, translational, and clinical research, research infrastructure, workforce development, the development of platform technologies for geroscience, and collaboration with the FDA, industry, and academia on the discovery and validation of biomarkers.”
NIA Language:
“Geroscience.—The Committee commends NIA for its support of geroscience, which seeks to understand the genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms that make aging a major risk factor and driver of numerous chronic conditions and diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and many others. A growing body of research suggests it is possible to develop treatments that would address many late-life diseases, as opposed to solely tackling each disease individually, as under the current prevailing model. Significant advances in recent years highlight the need to develop a comprehensive strategy for addressing research gaps and opportunities. Therefore, the Committee urges NIA to convene a meeting of experts across NIH, other relevant Federal agencies, academic researchers, and the private sector to identify gaps and opportunities for this research field. The Committee also recognizes that there is a shortage of investigators who combine clinical, social, and behavioral research skills with a knowledge of aging biology and experience in the care of older adults and the processes of aging at the individual and societal level. The Committee encourages NIA to expand its translational geroscience training programs to support the pipeline of such investigators. The Committee requests an update on these topics in the fiscal year 2024 Congressional Justification.”
Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Bill
FDA Language
“The agreement urges the FDA to develop clearer regulatory pathways for emerging aging treatments and to provide an update on its progress in the fiscal year 2024 congressional budget justification. The agreement also urges the FDA to increase support for regulatory science that can inform these pathways, including collaborations with the National Institutes of Health, industry, and academia on the discovery and validation of biomarkers.”
In September 2022, AFAR Board members Laura Niedernhofer, MD, PhD, and S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, spoke before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology through the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight at a special Hearing Charter, "The Fountain of Youth? The Quest for Aging Therapies."
