Boston OAIC: A Translational Approach to Function Promoting Therapies

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The Boston Older Americans Independence Center (Boston OAIC) has transcended the institutional boundaries to forge an interdisciplinary research network among aging researchers from Boston's leading academic centers to foster translational research in function promoting therapies (FPTs) – pharmacologic, physical, nutritional, technological and behavioral interventions that reduce the burden of disabling functional limitations. During its prior funding cycle, the Boston OAIC established 3 resource cores and supported 17 external projects, 9 pilot projects, 9 research education career (REC) awards, and 4 developmental projects. These investments contributed directly to the advancement of several highly talented early career scientists, including 3 Beeson awardees; enhanced research innovation and productivity, reflected in high quality peer- reviewed publications; provided research core support to many NIH-funded innovative projects by OAIC investigators; enabled substantial expansion of OAIC's collaborations with other Boston area aging centers and with other OAICs; and spurred new technologies, inventions, and patents. During the past cycle, the OAIC's center of gravity shifted to Harvard-affiliated medical centers due to the relocation of the PI. With the inclusion of several Harvard geriatricians in its leadership, the Boston OAIC is now well integrated with the Harvard Geriatrics and Gerontology research community and programs, including its T32 training grant, Harvard Clinical Translational Science Institute, the Roybal Center, The New England Geriatrics Research Clinical Education Center, and the Glenn Foundation Center for Biology of Aging. During the next funding cycle, the Boston OAIC will maintain its thematic focus on FPTs and its positioning across the entire spectrum of translational science from mechanism elucidation, preclinical proof-of-concept studies, biomarker validation, epidemiologic investigation to randomized trials of FPTs. The OAIC’s research program is founded on a platform of four cores: Leadership and Administrative Core (LAC), Research Education Core (REC), Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core (PESC), and Resource Cores (RC). The OAIC will integrate 19 externally-funded studies, and REC, PESC and developmental projects into a cohesive interdisciplinary program that is supported by 3 resource cores: Function Assessment Core, Preclinical Discovery Core, Biostatistics and Data Science Core. The REC will recruit the most promising stars from a vast reservoir of talent at Harvard, Tufts and BU, and train them through didactic and mentored research programs. The OAIC’s strengths include: 1) its focus on FPTs; 2) access to a large pool of talented young investigators, especially physician scientists, including 3 Beeson scholars; 3) strong collaborative leadership which has maintained high research productivity and grant funding; 4) strong institutional support; 5) success in developing intellectual property; 5) supporting several seminal randomized trials of FPTs; and 6) its success in forging synergistic collaborations with other Boston area aging research programs and with other OAICs.