About the Aging Program

The world's 60-and-over population increased by more than 12 million persons in 1995 alone, reaching a total of 550 million. By the year 2025, 1.2 billion people will be 60 or older. Improvements in health care and disease prevention have the potential to create economic benefit to, and to dramatically improve the quality of life of, millions of individuals. Significant breakthroughs in understanding the basic biological processes that underlie aging and age-related diseases are the best hope we have for achieving genuine prevention or amelioration of age-related debilitation and disease.

The Ellison Medical Foundation Aging Program supports basic biomedical research on aging relevant to understanding aging processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. The foundation stimulates basic biomedical research in multiple disciplines. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Structural biology
• Molecular genetics
• Studies with model systems ranging from lower eukaryotes to humans
• Inquiries testing the relevance of simpler models to human aging
• Genetic epidemiology of aging; candidate longevity genes
• Aging in the immune system
• Host defense molecules in aging systems
• Mechanisms of free radical induced cell aging
• Mechanisms of aging in various differentiated cell populations
• Gene/environment and gene/gene interactions
• Integrative physiology
• New approaches to age-modulated disease mechanisms: Alzheimer's disease and others.

For further information, contact:
Richard L. Sprott, Ph.D.
Executive Director
The Ellison Medical Foundation
4710 Bethesda Avenue
Suite 204
Bethesda, MD 20814-5226
(301) 657-1830 (Phone)
(301) 657-1828 (Fax)
Contact Dr. Sprott