Undergraduate Fundamentals in Aging Research

PROJECT SUMMARY Aging is the greatest risk factor for most chronic illnesses, and the interdisciplinary field of geroscience aims to understand the mechanisms of biological aging that impact the development of such age-associated and chronic diseases. While this concept has gained traction in some graduate programs affiliated with medical schools, geroscience is not well recognized or represented at the undergraduate level. To address the need for growing the geroscience workforce, the long-term goal of this education program is to increase the quantity and quality of new geroscience investigators by providing teaching and training to the most foundational population for strengthening the geroscientist pipeline – undergraduate students. NIA support will enable our creation of an undergraduate Education in Aging and Geroscience Research (EAGR) program. It is designed to support educational and research activities for undergraduates that will advance both basic and translational aspects of geroscience. Our EAGR program will be implemented through the execution of 5 synergistic Aims: (1) Create a geroscience coursework curriculum for training undergraduate students in the biological bases of aging and fundamentals of aging research; (2) Establish a research program for undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience in laboratories studying geroscience and the pillars/hallmarks of aging; (3) Promote career development and scientific communication activities that expedite student admission into graduate programs and identification of geroscience PhD labs; (4) Enhance the diversity of student researchers entering the geroscience field; (5) Disseminate course materials and research findings to the geroscience community and improve the public understanding of geroscience. By seeding the field of aging with new researchers and sharing the procedural aspects of the EAGR program, we hope to impact geroscience for many years to come.