Addressing global challenges for aging and dementia

In an InsideNIA blog post, Drs. Damali Martin and John Phillips of the NIA Division of Neuroscience announced that NIA is joining the Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) program. GEOHealth works to build institutions and networks in developing countries for coordinated and collaborative environmental and occupational health research, data management, and training at the local, regional, and global levels. Each NIA GEOHealth hub will be supported by two coordinated, linked awards: 1) a cooperative research award to an institution in a developing nation, and 2) a training award to a U.S. institution with substantial NIH involvement to coordinate research training. All GEOHealth projects must feature mentored research training and career development programs for scientists in low- and middle-income countries in a variety of disciplines. For more details or to apply for GEOHealth funding, visit RFA-TW-21-001 or RFA-TW-21-002.

Register Now: Development of an NIA Practice-Based Research Network to Conduct AD/ADRD Clinical Research

The National Institute on Aging will be hosting a virtual meeting to discuss the potential and planning of a practice-based research network (PBRN) to address the disparities gap with the recruitment and retention of diverse and underserved populations to AD/ADRD clinical research studies.

PBRNs are networks of health care clinicians and practices working together to answer community-based health care questions and translate research findings into practice–they have the potential to directly engage diverse and underserved communities in AD/ADRD clinical research.

When: Friday, April 30, 2021; 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. EDT

Keynote Speakers: Lori Minasian, MD, Deputy Director for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Prevention and Jonathan N. Tobin, PhD, Cardiovascular Epidemiologist and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Panel Speakers: Jennifer Manly, PhD, Andrea Gilmore-Bykovskyi, PhD, RN, and Jonathan Jackson, PhD

Who Should Attend: Researchers and other stakeholders who are interested in learning about PBRNs to address AD/ADRD research gaps

Click here to register.

New Funding Opportunities to Investigate Cellular Senescence!

From the NIA Division of Aging Biology

Contacts are [email protected] (Felipe Sierra, NIA) and [email protected] (Kevin Howcroft, NCI).

Application due dates are March 8, 2021.

The NIH Common Fund has issued three funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) to support the new Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet) program. The program aims to catalyze the development of a framework for mapping cellular senescence and its associated secretory phenotype at high resolution, and to provide atlases of cellular senescence in multiple tissues across various states of human health, and across the lifespan. In addition, it is expected that the SenNet will provide comprehensive sets of biomarkers describing heterogenous senescent cell states.

In these FOAs, NIH is calling for applications in the following areas:

Pre-application Webinar: NIH Common Fund staff will host an interactive pre-application webinar to discuss frequently asked questions as well as any other applicant queries on January 22, 2021, from 12:00-1:30 P.M. (EST). A recording of the webinar will not be posted online, but the slides and resultant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) will be posted on the SenNet webpage. Please direct inquiries to [email protected]. Webinar details are below:

https://nih.webex.com/nih/j.php?MTID=m9973369e640ca91c668b246542538191

Meeting number: 126 463 3177

Password: Senescence

Join by video system

Dial [email protected]

You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number.

Join by phone

1-650-479-3208 Call-in toll number (US/Canada)

Access code: 126 463 3177

Application Due Dates: Applications for each FOA are due March 8, 2021. Additional details about the program will be posted on the SenNet webpage as they become available.

We encourage you to share this email with any interested colleagues.

About the NIH Common Fund: The NIH Common Fund encourages collaboration and supports a series of exceptionally high-impact, trans-NIH programs. Common Fund programs are managed by the Office of Strategic Coordination in the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives in the NIH Office of the Director in partnership with the NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices. More information is available at the Common Fund website: https://commonfund.nih.gov.

Advancing the Health of an Aging Population: Groundbreaking Research Supported by the NIA

Please join the Friends of the National Institute on Aging to hear about the groundbreaking aging research that is being supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). The NIA, one of 27 Institutes comprising the National Institutes of Health (NIH), leads the national scientific effort to promote the health and well-being of older adults. It will be held on Thursday, June 30, 2016, 2:00-3:00 p.m. at the Capitol Visitorʼs Center, SVC 201, U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. To RSVP for the event, please go here.  To download details, please click here.

Below is an agenda of the event:

Welcome & Introductions
Kathryn Jedrziewski, Ph.D.
Chair, Friends of the NIA
Deputy Director, Pennʼs Institute on Aging

Advances at the NIA: From Bench to Bedside to Real-World Practice
Richard Hodes, M.D.
Director, National Institute on Aging

Marie A. Bernard, M.D.
Deputy Director, National Institute on Aging

Precision Medicine Approaches for Treatment of Alzheimerʼs & Parkinsonʼs
Corey McMillan, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania

Training the Next Generation
Peter M. Abadir, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology

Q&A

FoNIA Calls on NIH Director Collins to Increase Aging Research Funding

The Friends of the National Institute on Aging has sent a letter to Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institutes of Health, urging for an inclusion of an additional $500 million in the FY 2016 NIH Budget to support aging research. Its FY 2015 budget allocated about $2.5 billion for aging research.

The letter noted, “We believe that this funding is the minimum essential to sustain research needed to make progress in attacking the chronic diseases that are driving significant increases in our national healthcare costs. The institutes that make up the NIH, in particular the National institute on Aging (NIA), lead national scientific efforts to understand the nature of aging in order to promote the health and well-being of older adults, whose numbers are projected to increase dramatically in the coming years due to increased life expectancy and the aging of a baby boom generation.”

Please click here to read the letter.