DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks renewal of an Older Americans Independence Center at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. The focus of this Center is to promote independence for frail older adults through the development of interventions to prevent or ameliorate frailty and the many serious, adverse outcomes that frail older adults are at risk for. To accomplish this, a multidisciplinary group of senior and junior investigators, in multiple departments and Programs at this institution, propose to continue and enhance, through this OAIC, 1. the Leadership Council that will stimulate, lead and sustain a University-wide interdisciplinary research program investigating frailty, its etiology and opportunities for treatment; 2. the infrastructure and methodologic development essential to creating the next generations of research on frailty in older adults; 3. support for the career development of outstanding junior faculty committed to research careers that will lead to treatments for frailty and its prevention; and 4. to cultivate and support pilot studies that will provide the basis for investigator-initiated and funded research towards interventions on frailty. The OAIC would provide the support critical to complement and harness the substantial strengths already at this institution into a unified and potent effort directed at developing interventions for frailty. It is designed to ensure multidisciplinary translation between basic, mechanistic and clinical/population-based research, and of each into development of treatments for frailty. This organized infrastructure and scientific leadership will serve as a source of advice and collaborations to investigators at our own institution and at other institutions in the area of research on frailty in aging. The OAIC will be administratively led by, and housed in, the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health, with strong leadership and participation by all of the institutional programs committed to aging research; it will also seek to expand to incorporate leaders and investigators not previously involved in research on frailty but who have made a commitment to this work through the planning process for this proposal. This OAIC has strong institutional commitment, based on the priority at the Medical Institutions for the unification and strengthening of aging research and spotlighting its importance for the entire institution. Overall, it is designed to spearhead a new depth and intensity of research to improve outcomes and promote independence for frail, older adults.
The Leadership and Administrative Core leads the vision for the science of frailty and its translation in this OAIC. It leads the identification of the next generation of research on frailty that should be created, supports research planning, recruitment of investigators, setting of goals and benchmarks, and evaluation activities for the Cores, the OAIC as a whole, conducts other administrative activities, and creates visibility for the accomplishments of the OAIC. Led by the Principal Investigator of this OAIC, in collaboration with the leaders of all other OAIC Cores and supported by administrative staff, the roles and responsibilities of this LAC include essential leadership in stimulating, planning, goal-setting, integrating, sustaining and monitoring OAIC operations, and the organization and evaluation of all elements of this proposed continuation of the Older Americans Independence Center at Johns Hopkins, as well as responsibility for setting standards, administration and reporting. Its goals are to ensure the conduct of these OAIC functions within a broader goal of helping recruit, initiate and nurture creation of a critical mass of investigators dedicated to advancing discoveries essential to prevention and treatment of frailty in older adults, and supporting the creation of innovative, high impact research to this end. The overall goals of workforce development and support of research are to translate the results of OAlC-supported work into new treatments to enhance independence in older Americans, and creation of a new generation of research leaders in the field.
