Leadership and Administrative Core

This competing continuation of The Boston Older Americans Independence Center (Boston OAIC) builds upon a highly productive research network of resources and extant collaborations among leading aging researchers from academic medical centers associated with Harvard, Tufts and Boston universities to foster translational research in function promoting therapies (FPTs) and reduce the burden of disabling functional limitations in older adults.. During this past cycle, with the inclusion of Dr. Lipsitz as Associate Director and REC Director, Dr. Marcantonio and Wagers as REC Associate Directors, and Dr. Kiel as PESC Co-Leader, the Boston OAIC is now well integrated with the the Harvard Geriatrics and Gerontology research community and programs, including its T32 training grant, Harvard Clinical Translational Science Institute, the Roybal Center, The New England Geriatrics Research Clinical Education Center, and the Glenn Foundation Center for Biology of Aging. The LAC is responsible for stimulating, sustaining, evaluating, and reporting OAIC’s progress towards its goals and enabling integration of OAIC activities. In addition to providing administrative support, the LAC coordinates the activities of Boston OAIC’s investigators, resource cores, its conferences, and career development activities. The LAC leadership scouts the participating institutions for the most promising early career scientists for its REC program, and emerging science projects for PESC or developmental project support. The LAC issues requests for application for its PES, REC, and developmental projects and oversees the review of applications - a first stage internal peer review followed by review and approval by the external advisory board. The LAC evaluates the operations of its cores and maintains accountability of its participating projects, members and cores. The LAC directs the Boston OAIC through ongoing interaction with the external and internal advisory boards, and NIA staff, and monitors the activities and progress of OAIC’s projects. The LAC maintains integration across the various components of OAIC through its PROMOTE Program by organizing monthly conferences, an annual retreat, and maintaining a website and a newsletter. The OAIC leaders serve as science concierges to facilitate collaborations among scientists from various institutions and access to core resources. The LAC provide administrative support for REC, PESC, and developmental project awardees. LAC facilitates commercialization of discoveries and innovations through its LINK program. The LAC leadership interacts with investigators at other OAICs to establish collaborations, a task in which it has had substantial success during the past 5 years (Progress Report). It oversees the dissemination of information about the OAIC among stakeholders, and maintains community outreach. Thus the LAC stimulates, sustains, integrates, and evaluates the activities of the OAIC, and enables the integration of OAIC activities to facilitate the accomplishment of its goal of promoting translational research in FPTs.