Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core

SUMMARY The goal of the University of Florida (UF) Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core (PESC) is to help plan future independently supported studies that address the UF OAIC’s overall research theme of promotion of mobility and independence in older Americans. To this end, the PESC solicits and selects promising innovative pilot, exploratory, and developmental studies and secure optimal infrastructure, environment, funding, expertise, and resources. Core leaders monitor study progress, help analyze and interpret results, and provide guidance in translating these pilot data into high-quality and original research study applications that successfully compete for independent extramural funding. The provision of funds for pilot, exploratory, and developmental studies supports Early Stage Investigators in their efforts to develop research careers in aging. The PESC also allows accomplished investigators in aging to gather data that extend and broaden their focus. In this capacity, it encourages and facilitates experienced investigators traditionally working in other research fields, such as physiology, pathology, metabolomics, cancer, pain, and the behavioral sciences, to expand their research to include aging. This widens the pool of talent that we believe will contribute to advances in the promotion of mobility and independence and the OAIC as a whole. In this application we propose five pilot studies that offer a wide variety of interdisciplinary approaches to address the OAIC research theme. As we have proven over the past several years, we are highly successful in translating findings from our pilot, exploratory, and development studies into extramurally funded grants (up to 94% success rates), and also in supporting our Early Stage Investigators through career advances including the tenure and promotion process.