San Antonio Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Biology of Aging

Since 1995, the San Antonio Nathan Shock Center (SA NSC) has provided critical support in geroscience to investigators locally, nationally, and abroad. With growing intellectual capital and resources, the SA NSC has evolved to meet the needs of the changing field and provides an enhanced, horizontally integrated platform to develop, apply, and define the outcomes of gerotherapeutic interventions for healthy aging and act as a springboard for advanced education, training, and development of investigators in geroscience. Based on our successful track record, we fully anticipate that our overall approach will greatly facilitate delineation of the molecular and cellular mechanisms that influence aging. Moreover, our integrated approach will develop and apply novel strategies and pharmacologic interventions to promote healthy lifespan. To achieve these objectives, we have leveraged and streamlined our resources and strengths to provide a cohesive venue that facilitates training, development, and application of aging studies in a well-integrated format targeted at gerotherapeutic interventions to address these Specific Aims: 1. To provide national leadership in research strategies that advance our understanding of aging biology. 2. To accelerate transformative research and develop novel interventions to improve aging health. 3. To foster and promote career development of investigators in aging biology. 4. To serve as a resource and partner to investigators from other Shock Centers, institutions, and the public, for dissemination of scientific knowledge and enhancing awareness about aging research. In our approach, we employ 6 Research Cores designed to assist researchers from conceptual ideas, through application of developed models and delineation of affected mechanisms: a) Administrative/Program Enrichment Core; b) Aging Animal Models and Functional Assessment Core; c) Pharmacology and Drug Design Core (PDDC); d) GeroMetabolism Core (GMC); e) Pathology Core; f) Research Development Core. These interrelated Research Cores are designed to assist researchers from conceptual ideas, through application of developed models and delineation of affected mechanisms in the biology of aging. This gerotherapeutic-focused approach is complemented by state-of-the-art methodologies, using animal models from rodents (mice, rats, naked mole- rats) to nonhuman primates (marmosets). The commitment to aging research at UTHSA is ideal for fostering rigorous aging research and features exceptional and tightly integrated resources in geroscience moving aging biology towards translational opportunities to improve aging health. These include an Older Americans Independence Center, a site of the Interventions Testing Program, an NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, a VA-funded Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), an NCI-funded Cancer Center and the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.