NIH awards Einstein multimillion dollar grant to extend studies of exceptional...( Sept. 17 2007 -- (BRONX NY) -- Alber...),Health

Sept. 17, 2007 -- (BRONX, NY) -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has been awarded a grant of more than $9.25 million from the National Institutes of Health to further the medical schools study of centenarians and the biology of aging.

Led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of Einsteins Institute for Aging Research, the research will build on the teams previous work to identify genes that appear to contribute to exceptional longevity in humans, and to assess the associations among these genes with the delay or absence of age-related diseases such as heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. To date, Dr. Barzilai and colleagues have identified several biological markers that, they believe, may have contributed to the health and long lives of the centenarians and their familiesnumbering over 400who have participated in Einsteins Longevity Genes Project.

The NIH grant will support a program of integrated projects, which are aimed at illuminating and expanding the current knowledge of the biological mechanisms of healthy aging. Research goals include:

• identifying additional genes and genetic variations within genes associated with longevity;

• identifying the ways these genes and their variants interact in humans;

• identifying the specific mechanisms of these genes and their variants, as well as their roles in the onset or absence of age-related diseases and/or mental and physical preservation;

• examining whether these longevity genes are likely to affect the incidence of cardiovascular disease and other life-threatening illnesses in the offspring of centenarians; and

• examining whether these longevity genes affect the incidence of cognitive impairment in relation to the presence of favorable genotypes and their phenotypic expression.

We are very grateful to the NIH for its support, said Dr. Barzilai, who also is the Ingeborg
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