Research Development Core

Summary: The overall goals of the Research Development Core are to expand the group of scientists at the University of Rochester, Cornell and across the nation who are actively conducting research to advance the mechanistic understanding of aging, to promote the use of Comparative Biology of Aging and, ultimately, to develop interventions to control the aging process. The Research Development Core mission is to attract young or new talent to the field of aging research and ensure their success. We will focus on the entire career spectrum including undergraduate students, graduate students, postdocs, junior faculty, and established faculty. For undergraduate students we will continue to offer the course on Biology of Aging. This is a successful course with enrollment of ~100 students. We will additionally establish the Undergraduate Summer Internship Program to support research internships in Upstate NSC member laboratories. For graduate students and postdocs, we will establish a Seminar Course in basic biology of aging. Additionally, we will establish mentoring committees for postdocs and junior faculty members. The Research Development Core will establish the Pilot Grant Program to stimulate the development of innovative ideas in aging research and enable Upstate NSC investigators and the broader aging research community to use the unique experimental opportunities afforded by the Upstate NSC Research Cores. In addition, this Core will fund short-term scientific visits of Upstate NSC members or trainees to other institutions or of investigators from other institutions to Upstate NSC Core laboratories. This scientific exchange is intended to support training, experimental collaboration, and intellectual exchange. The Research Development Core will also support conference attendance by trainees. To achieve these goals, we propose three specific aims: 1) Assist faculty members with the potential to initiate high impact aging research by funding their aging-related pilot projects; 2) Promote training and mentoring in aging research across the training continuum; and 3) Foster scientific exchange and collaboration with researchers studying aging from other institutions, especially other NSCs.