The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences Advance Access published online on February 5, 2009
The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, doi:10.1093/gerona/gln063
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This article appears in the following The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences issue: Special Issue: Biology of Aging Summit [View the issue table of contents]
Healthspan, Translation, and New Outcomes for Animal Studies of Aging
1 Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
2 College of Health Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington
Address correspondence to James L. Kirkland, MD, PhD, Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, Mayo Clinic, Guggenheim 742B, Rochester, MN 55905. kirkland.james{at}mayc.edu
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Abstract |
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Dramatic advances in understanding mechanisms of aging have recently been made in model systems. Interventions have been devised that successfully enhance survival. Major issues still in need of resolution include whether these interventions not only increase survival but also enhance function, delay frailty, and can be translated into clinical application. It seems there are basic biologic findings close to being ready for translation. However, a number of barriers exist to translating these findings into realistic clinical interventions. Steps and resources needed include measuring not only survival but also impact of interventions on age-related disability, frailty, and onset of disease in model systems; development of clinically relevant measures of disability, frailty, and disease for each animal model and genetically tractable animal models of frailty; training and career-long funding mechanisms for geriatricians in basic science research and for basic scientists in geriatric issues; translationally capable review and funding mechanisms; emphasis on studies of interventions that can be initiated in later life for preventing or reversing disability; genetic association studies in humans to identify new candidate genes and pathways that correlate with disability, frailty, and age-related disease onset as well as longevity; study of exposure to environmental agents or toxins early in life on survival, disability, frailty, and disease in later life.
Keywords Healthspan; Translation; Animal studies of aging
Received: December 9, 2008; Accepted: December 10, 2008