Geroscience: Addressing the mismatch between its exciting research opportunities, its economic imperative and its current funding crisis

Abstract

There is at present a huge disconnect between levels of funding for basic research on fundamental mechanisms of biological aging and, given demographic projections, the anticipated enormous social and economic impacts of a litany of chronic diseases for which aging is by far the major risk factor: One valuable approach, recently instigated by Felipe Sierra & colleagues at the US National Institute on Aging, is the development of a Geroscience Interest Group among virtually all of the NIH institutes. A complementary approach would be to seek major escalations of private funding. The American Federation for Aging Research, the Paul Glenn Foundation and the Ellison Medical Foundation pioneered efforts by the private sector to provide substantial supplements to public sources of funding. It is time for our community to organize efforts towards the enhancements of such crucial contributions, especially in support of the emerging generation of young investigators, many of whom are leaving our ranks to seek alternative employment. To do so, we must provide potential donors with strong economic, humanitarian and scientific rationales. An initial approach to such efforts is briefly outlined in this manuscript as a basis for wider discussions within our community.

Keywords: Animal models of Alzheimer's disease; Antigeroid alleles; Comparative gerontology; Developmental biology, intergenerational and transgenerational inheritance; Epigenetic drift; Geroscience; Healthspan/lifespan ratios; Induced pleuripotent stem cells; Pet dogs; Research funding; Stem cell niches; Young plasma, somatic cell genetics.

Fig. 1

The results of PubMed searches on June 21, 2016 for papers on healthspan and lifespan conducted with model organisms. The results show that the vast majority of such publications have been concerned with lifespan, not healthspan

Fig. 2

An initial draft of an administrative structure designed to provide substantial increments of private sources of funding in order to accelerate progress on both basic and translational research in Geroscience via both federal and non-federal granting agencies. The focus of such research would be comparable to that of the NIH Geroscience Interest Group – i.e., to support research that addresses both fundamental and applied Geroscience research with the potential to slow the rate of biological aging and thus to delay, ameliorate or prevent multiple disorders of aging. The goal of such research would be to enhance the healthspans as well as the lifespans of human populations and of pet animals. Such research must also address the important issue of how such interventions may impact the ratios of Healthspan/Lifespan (see text).