Translational Geroscience Network

A new paradigm for aging research

Geroscience is a research paradigm based in understanding the genetic, molecular and cellular mechanisms that make aging a major risk factor for and driver of common chronic conditions and diseases of older people. Geroscience research seeks to understand how aging affects the disease process and to use that knowledge to slow the rate of aging, reverse its effects, and delay or even cure age-related diseases. The Translational Geroscience Network (TGN) is a collaboration of researchers looking at clinical interventions that target fundamental mechanisms of aging to delay, prevent or treat age-related diseases and disabilities as a group, instead of one at a time.

Reducing disease, improving quality of life

Aging is the leading risk factor for chronic diseases — including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and cancer — that jointly account for the bulk of the nation's morbidity, mortality and health care costs. Recent findings suggest that it's feasible to alleviate such disorders by targeting fundamental aging processes. Clinical interventions that slow the aging processes have the potential to dramatically lower health care costs, perhaps more so than the cure of any single disease, while significantly improving quality of life. Several such interventions are now at the point of entering human proof-of-concept clinical trials. Others are at various stages of preclinical testing. The TGN accelerates these trials and translates applicable findings into clinical practice.