San Antonio Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center

Established in 2015, the San Antonio Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (SA OAIC) is the first focused on the concept of geroscience. It has spearheaded high impact research in humans and nonhuman primates on virtually all hallmarks of aging, including groundbreaking first-in-human trials of senolytics, repurposing drugs to target age-related diseases and frailty, lifestyle interventions to improve health outcomes in older adults, and identification of new targets for interventions. Based on its theme, “Translational geroscience to improve the health and functional independence of all older adults”, the SA OAIC will pursue four programmatic Specific Aims: 1. Move basic geroscience discoveries into interventions to improve the health and functional independence in all populations of older adults. 2. Develop the future leaders in translational geroscience and geriatrics. 3. Partner with other OAICs, NIA/NIH Centers, and institutions on geroscience and clinical trial initiatives. 4. Broadly disseminate discoveries and innovations in translational geroscience. The SA OAIC renewal builds on the considerable scientific accomplishments achieved in the current cycle (2020-2024) by supporting 13 early career investigators, 19 pilot studies and developmental projects, and 41 externally funded projects, and the new opportunities provided by the recruitment of new talent to the OAIC program. The SA OAIC will increase its focus on function, with new emphasis on health outcomes variability in the populations of South Texas, which experience an earlier onset of age-related morbidities and functional decline. Thus, geroscience strategies may have a greater impact in this population. SA OAIC will also leverage the new fullservice drug development and testing pipeline created in collaboration with other institutional programs to identify new targets and develop new age-modulating drugs for rapid testing in unique preclinical primate models and first-in-human trials. The SA OAIC will advance its aims by supporting four Scholars, five pilot studies, eight developmental and 16 externally funded projects and enhanced core infrastructure which includes four highly productive Resource Cores: Preclinical Research, Clinical Research, Molecular Phenotyping, and Biostatistics and Informatics. Under the dedicated leadership of Drs. Elena Volpi, Randy Strong and Rebeca Wong, the Leadership and Administrative Core will coordinate resource core activities with those of the Research Education Component and the Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core.