Ageing Research Translation (ART) of Healthy Ageing Network

全球人口正在老龄化——越来越多的人寿命更长，65岁及以上的人口比例比以往任何时候都要高。这显然是个好消息，然而，健康寿命（即人们健康地独立生活的年数）的提高并没有跟上寿命（人们活的年数）的提高。这意味着增加的寿命并不总是健康的。为了解决这个问题，英国政府制定了一个雄心勃勃的目标，即到2035年，确保人们至少能再享受5年健康、独立的生活。然而，最近上议院科学和技术委员会关于健康老龄化的报告得出结论，除非我们开发出研究老龄化的新方法，从而确定有效的方法来促进整个生命的健康老龄化，否则这个目标不太可能实现。上议院委员会特别指出，有必要联合不同领域的衰老研究，以确保实验室的发现能在人体研究之后得到跟进。健康老龄化网络的老龄化研究翻译（ART）的目的是解决这一科学挑战。我们的网络将在实验室研究、人体详细研究和关于健康、疾病和生活方式的现有信息之间建立联系。我们将结合这些领域的专业知识，为整个生命周期的健康老龄化建立一个独特的转化平台（一系列具有标准化协议、共享招募方法和共享结果衡量标准的研究），以测试改善人们从出生到老年的健康和福祉的方法。为了实现这一愿景，该网络将汇集来自英国和其他地区不同学科的研究人员，包括在衰老生物学、流行病学、患者护理、生理学、临床研究（包括试验）、数学、统计学和数据科学方面的专业人士，以及来自公众和慈善机构、政策制定者和行业的代表。通过参与该网络和组织的广泛活动，将支持成员共同努力寻找新的方法来研究人类衰老的潜在生物过程，并利用这项研究产生的证据来制定和测试促进健康老龄化的干预措施。我们将举行一系列的利益相关者会议和会议，将人们聚集在一起，形成新的联系，分享知识。重要的是，我们将培养新的研究人员的职业生涯。健康老龄化技术网络将为他们提供所需的培训和机会，帮助他们在转化老龄化研究方面建立成功的职业生涯，并与广泛的同事成功合作。最后，健康老龄化技术网络将通过一系列试点项目促进更紧密合作的机会，使不同的研究小组能够开始解决问题，克服技术、伦理和组织障碍，以确保我们能够建立这个全英国范围的平台来进行人类老龄化研究。健康老龄化网络的ART活动将提供一个不断增长的跨学科研究人员网络，一个由跨学科培训的早期职业研究人员组成的蓬勃发展的社区，一个广泛和参与的利益相关者社区，一个明确的发展网络和发展英国基础设施的路线图，以及显示我们在整个生命过程中健康老龄化转化平台的初步概念验证的项目。它将在研究人员之间产生新的合作，这些研究人员具有开发可信应用以获得进一步资助所必需的临界质量。通过提供额外的资金和能力来做更多的研究，我们的健康老龄化技术网络将加速老龄化研究在英国和国际上的转化，以实现改善所有人健康寿命的目标。

The global population is ageing - more people are living longer lives and a greater proportion of the population are aged 65 and over than at any time in the past. This is clearly good news, however improvements in healthspan (that is, the number of years people spend in good health, living independently) have not kept pace with improvements in lifespan (the number of years people live for). This means that the additional years of life are not always lived in good health.To address this, the UK government has set the ambitious target of ensuring that people can enjoy at least five additional healthy, independent years of life by 2035. However, a recent House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report on healthy ageing has concluded that this target is unlikely to be met unless we develop new ways to research ageing that lead to the identification of effective methods to promote healthy ageing across life. In particular, the House of Lords committee noted the need to join up different areas of ageing research to make sure that discoveries in the laboratory are followed up by studies in people.The aim of the Ageing Research Translation (ART) of Healthy Ageing Network is to address this scientific challenge. Our Network will create links between laboratory research, detailed studies in humans, and existing sets of information on health, illness and lifestyle. We will combine these areas of expertise to build a unique Translational Platform (a series of studies with standardised protocols, shared recruitment methods and shared outcome measures) for Healthy Ageing across the Life Course to test ways to improve people's health and wellbeing from birth to old age. To achieve this vision, the Network will bring together researchers from different academic disciplines across the UK and beyond, including people with expertise in the biology of ageing, epidemiology, patient care, physiology, clinical research studies including trials, mathematics, statistics and data science along with members of the public and representatives from charities, policymakers and industry.Through their involvement in the Network and the wide range of activities organised, members will be supported to work together to find new ways to study underlying biological processes of ageing in humans and, to use the evidence generated from this research to develop and test interventions that promote healthy ageing. We will hold a series of stakeholder meetings and conferences to bring people together to form new links and share knowledge. Importantly, we will nurture the careers of new researchers. The ART of Healthy Ageing Network will provide the training and opportunities that they need to build successful careers in translational ageing research and work successfully with a broad range of colleagues. Finally, the ART of Healthy Ageing Network will promote opportunities for closer working through a series of pilot projects, enabling different groups of researchers to start solving problems and overcoming technical, ethical and organisational barriers to make sure that we can build this UK-wide platform to conduct ageing studies in humans.The activities of the ART of Healthy Ageing Network will deliver a growing interdisciplinary network of researchers, a thriving community of early career researchers with interdisciplinary training, a broad and engaged stakeholder community, a clear road map for growing the Network and developing UK infrastructure, and projects showing initial proof-of-concept for our Translational Platform for Healthy Ageing across the Life Course. It will generate new collaborations between researchers with the critical mass necessary to develop credible applications for further funding. By delivering additional funding and hence capacity to do more research, our ART of Healthy Ageing Network will accelerate translational Ageing research in the UK and internationally to deliver the goal of improving healthspan for all.