DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a renewal application for the Johns Hopkins University Older Americans Independence Center(OAIC). Investigators in this center seek to promote independence in older adults through the study of the etiologies of frailty and through the translation of this knowledge into the development of novel, frailty focused interventions. The specific aims of this proposal are: 1) to stimulate and develop effective frailty focused interdisciplinary research programs 2) to translate the frailty-focused knowledge generated in this OAIC into targeted prevention and treatment strategies that help older adults maintain independence; 3) to provide focused and accessible frailty-related training and mentorship to junior investigators interested in developing careers focused on maintaining independence in older adults; 4) to provide the highest quality interdisciplinary expertise and infrastructure in biostatistical, biological, and clinical research that is relevant to frailty research to OAIC supported investigators; 5) to support the development of innovative methodologies, research strategies and technologies essential to the study of frailty; and 6) to attract outstanding investigators and trainees to frailty research from across the Johns Hopkins University and to promote visibility of their science locally and nationally. Leadership, career development, and pilot study cores will provide scientific vision, training, and study support mechanisms. Highly integrated biostatistics, biological mechanisms, and a clinical translational and recruitment cores, along with the additional institutional research resources and support, will provide supported investigators with the interdisciplinary expertise, training, mentorship, and service necessary to stimulate outstanding frailty-focused basic, clinical and translational research programs. This OAIC and its leadership has strong institutional commitment for the development of these programs, and for the strengthening of aging research for the entire institution. This Infrastructure and scientific leadership will serve as a source of frailty-focuse scientific vision, expertise, training, research support, collaboration, and translation for investigators at Johns Hopkins, other OAICs and at other academic institutions in the area of research on frailty in aging.
PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): This Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) Leadership and Administrative Core (LAC) was designed to provide the scientific leadership, organization and infrastructure necessary to lead and oversee the frailty-focused activities of this OAIC. Frailty is highly associated with late life decline and the loss of independence, and investigators in this center have effectively utilized this focus for biological discovery and for the development of potential independence maintaining interventions. The overall goal of the LAC is to ensure the ongoing success of this OAIC in stimulating and sustaining the next generation of frailty-related science and the next generation of frailty-focused investigators. The aims of this LAC are 1) to provide interdisciplinary intellectual leadership and vision necessary to stimulate and sustain frailty research, 2) to identify and attract the next generation of frailty-focused research leaders, 3) to lead, administer, and oversee all core functions, 4) to prepare annual reports and administrative documentation for the OAIC, 5) to organize and conduct sicentific session that propel frailty-focused science and career development, and 6) to organize and maximize OAIC supported investigator participation in scientific sessions at Johns Hopkins and at scientifically relevant national meetings. This Core will provide leadership and organization that wili ensure the successful development and implementation pf the infrastructure and new methods needed to further research on frailty, and support the conduct of pilot studies and the career development and research productivity of outstanding junior faculty in the field of frailty research. This core will set goals with all other cores and hold them accountable for meeting these goals. It will lead the scientific discussions among the multidisciplinary Leadership Council ofthis OAIC as to scientific direction and clinical relevance, provide institutional leadership in identifying the investigators and mechanisms to accomplish the scientific goals, and fostering their success. The LAC will also be responsible for ensuring effective utilization of resources, reallocating resources as appropriate, convening the Leadership Council monthly, and the External Advisory Board annually, and independent review panels as needed.
PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): . ,V The long-term objective ofthe Research Career Development Core (RCDC) is the establishment of a core of well-trained, highly motivated junior faculty who will become leaders and mentors in scholarship on frailty and its translation into the prevention and amelioration of frailty in older adults. The RCDC accomplishes this objective through progress through five specific aims: 1) It partners with the Leadership Council ofthe LAC to identify, attract, and select outstanding junior faculty from a variety of disciplines with the interest and potential to become future leaders in the field of frailty and preservation of independence for older adults. 2) It provides the research infrastructure, salary support and protected time essential to enable the selected faculty to successfully bridge the critical transition between fellowship and independent grant funding. 3) It provides mentorship with both team-based and one-on-one elements so as to promote, benchmark, and assure research progress and career development. 4) It designs for each supported individual a program of subject-area, methodological and leadership training to equip him/her for their career goals, and promotes its successful completion. 5) It creates a welcoming academic home and 'stimulus zone' for junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and predoctoral students invested in frailty-related scholarship through forums for ongoing networking and intellectual enrichment between RCDC-supported investigators and all other OAIC supported investigators including monthly research-in-progress sessions and sponsorship of working group meetings, seminars and guest lecturers in collaboration with partnering institutional resources on aging. Resources are prioritized, first, to K-eligible individuals, followed by R-eligible individuals and then to other trainees so as to direct Core efforts to support at a key transitional point, when research careers are often in jeopardy because of lack of funding and research infrastructure. The leadership of this Core and the OAIC as a whole will continue to emphasize training across disciplines and toward translation between basic science and clinical investigation. The Core aims to produce aging- and frailty-focused independent investigators who will lead research whose application will improve independence in older adults.
PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) proposes to offer a new resource core entitled Clinical Translational and Recruitment Core, or Resource Core 3 (RC-3). This core has been developed in part because of the need to accelerate the translation of important biological findings related to frailty into clinical studies, and because of the need to train and support junior investigators proposing clinical investigations in frail, older adults. This initiative is closely aligned with the JHU Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology's goals of integrating clinical practice with research, will be in large part funded by divisional philanthropic resources. The specific aims of RC-3 are 1) to provide supported OAIC investigators with comprehensive training and mentorship in clinical research, 2) to provide the oversight necessary to ensure optimal and safe performance of clinical studies, 3) to provide clinical research space and assistance with all aspects as needed of protocol development, data collection, and recruitment of human subjects, 4) to maintain and grow an active frailty registry of older adults characterized for frailty and consented to be contacted for additional aging and frailty related studies. The recruitment of a core leader who has considerable expertise in the development, implementation, and in the conduct of both .clinical physiological studies and clinical trials and the addition of a highly skilled and experienced research program manager with expertise in minority recruitment and in the measurement of frailty and mobility will facilitate the completion of these aims. These aims will be carded out in close collaboration with the leaders of all other resource cores, which will help to ensure optimal study design, implementation, and interpretation of results: In addition, this core will play a crucial role in the training of junior investigators engaged in RCDC activities and in pilot/exploratory studies. In first year of this proposal, that includes clinical studies involving human subjects that target questions related to inflammation, mitochondrial function, and the angiotensin system. RC3 will accelerate the pace of translation ofthe important biological findings being generated in this OAIC into clinical studies that will focus on the maintenance of independence in older adults.
PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): The identification of the etiologies of frailty and age-related vulnerability remains one of the most important challenges in Gerontologic research. Key to this challenge is the development of a better understanding of the underlying biological basis that contributes to frailty, and the identification of key biological pathways for the development of interventions that might help prevent or alleviate frailty and loss of independence. The purpose of Johns Hopkins Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) Biological Mechanisms Core (RC- 2) is to provide access to a broad array of state of the art biological measurement resources that will enable the next generation of frailty-focused discovery. In addition, RC2 will provide biological samples, and facilitate training, mentorship and translation around biological mechanisms that impact the development of frailty and declines in independence. The specific aims of RC2 are 1) to provide state of the art scientific expertise, infrastructure, and technology necessarily to forward biological and etiological research related to frailty, 2) to provide access to biological samples from human subjects and from animal models necessary to test hypotheses related to frailty, 3) to facilitate the translation of biological findings into interventions or prevention focused clinical studies, 4) to provide training, mentorship, and guidance to promising junior investigators around biological mechanisms that impact frailty, and 5) to provide institutional and external visibility for RC-2 related science and activities, the human resources, infrastructure, and training necessary to facilitate the highest quality genetic and molecular studies related to frailty, the overall focus of the Hopkins OAIC. These aims will be accomplished through close collaboration between the interdisciplinary core leaders and their laboratories, the leadership of the other OAIC cores, and through the engagement of highly expert consultants in the highly relevant areas of epigenetic, telomere biology, mitochondrial function, mouse model development, and nanotechnologies and proteomics. By providing these resources, RC-2 will foster high quality research that elucidate clinically relevant biological pathways that underlie frailty, and related interventions that attenuate frailty and loss of independence.
The OAIC Biostatistics Core dedicates critically needed resources toward the quantitative challenges of research on frailty. Collaborating in OAIC leadership, and working closely with OAlC Resource, Research Career Development Core (RCDC) and Pilot and Experimental Studies Core (PESC), it aims to: (1) mentor junior scholars supported by our RCDC, PESC and broader OAIC, with the goals of optimizing their: access to data analytic expertise and support; usage of modern database and analytic resources; training in quantitative methods needed to perform high quality research and effectiveness of collaboration with statistical colleagues; (2) provide resources in data infrastructure and emerging computing technologies essential to discovery on frailty, and not possible absent an OAIC or its equivalent; (3) stimulate and advance research on frailty at our institution, by: (a) providing data analytic and management expertise and material support for research on frailty, and (b) developing new methodologies for data analysis needed to conduct basic research on frailty and translate it into clinical practice; and (4) partner with our fellow OAIC Cores, the scholarly community on aging at Johns Hopkins, and with fellow OAICs to advance scholarship on frailty and aging, its translation into effective prevention and intervention strategies, and heighten its visibility. The Core benefits from leadership in these areas that has been long-standing, substantial and wide-reaching. Its situation within this OAIC allows it to provide consultation and collaboration to junior researchers lacking resources. Regarding new methodologies: Research in the coming cycle would be directed to increasing the proof of principle for the hypothesis that dysregulation in multiple physiological systems underpins frailty. By efforts along all these lines, this Core is essential to the success of this OAIC in answering a next generation of questions on frailty, and achieving findings' translation toward increased independence of older persons.
