Happy 50th to the National Institute on Aging and happy 30th to the Nathan Shock Centers

Abstract

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in 2024, it might also be appropriate to remind ourselves that it is also the 30th anniversary of the initial Request for Applications for the Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, now in their 29th year of existence.These centers were named for Nathan Shock, who served for 35 years as head of the Gerontology Research Center Branch of the National Institute on Aging and helped put the study of human aging on a firm scientific foundation. In his research, Dr. Shock stressed the importance of longitudinal studies, and to that end co-founded in 1958 the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, 1 still the most comprehensive, continuous longitudinal study of human aging, now going strong in its 66th year. The Nathan Shock Centers were the brain child of Richard A. Sprott, Director of what is now the Division of Aging Biology of the NIA. He felt that basic, mechanistic aging research needed the same sort of centers of

Happy 50th birthday to the National Institute on Aging: Where would geriatric medicine and care of older adults be without you?

“…The answers to these and other important questions lie in a collection of exciting reports that address progress at NIA from the perspective of NIA-funded centers of excellence and major ongoing collaborative networks [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] ; AGS/NIA Conference Series Advancing Geriatrics Research, [13][14][15] as well as efforts to train the next generation of leaders in aging research. [16][17][18][19] When evaluating the history of the NIA it is easy to be impressed by the sheer magnitude of the nation's investment in NIA's mission, which at $ 4.4 billion a year (9.3% of the entire NIH budget) makes NIA the largest funder of aging research around the globe.…”