Exceptional Longevity Data Management and Coordinating Center

Advanced age is the primary risk factor for developing dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Disorders (ADRD). Investigating the factors that contribute to healthy aging and exceptional long life represents an opportunity to reduce the burden of diseases of aging including Alzheimer’s and related dementias. To this end, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) has established four longevity translational projects working to identify genetic and other molecular signatures of long life and resilience to age-related diseases in humans and non-human species. Employing team science approaches to assemble the complementary approaches and expertise of the dozens of researchers across this network presents a powerful opportunity to extend and integrate this work by aggregating resources and knowledge across domains, including Alzheimer’s and related dementias. The overarching goal of the proposed Exceptional Longevity Data Management and Coordination Core (EL DMCC) is to aid the EL research community in these efforts by facilitating research on protective factors that contribute to exceptional health and resilience to age-related diseases like AD and ADRD. The DMCC will address this goal by (1) Establishing a dynamic catalog of EL data and resources, (2) Initiating cross-team analytical projects and data challenges to leverage expertise and data from across the EL projects and in conjunction with AD resilience projects, (3) Developing an EL Knowledge Portal to act as a central hub for EL research resources, and (4) Piloting a limited data commons to enable facile computation on EL and AD data within the cloud environment for EL investigators.