Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at Yale
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The objective of the Research Education Core (REC) is to identify highly promising early-stage investigators and provide support to promote their development as independent investigators and leaders in aging research. The REC seeks to provide three groups of investigators, designated as Pepper Scholars, Small REC Awardees, and REC Affiliates, with the knowledge and skills to conduct biological, translational, and clinical studies of multifactorial geriatric conditions and to obtain subsequent funding from a broad range of sources. The outcomes and career advancement goals for the Pepper Scholars include: 1) publication of research results in high-impact journals; 2) success in obtaining independent funding, both to support further career development (e.g. K08 and K23 awards) and specific projects (e.g. R21 and R01 awards); and 3) development of leadership skills necessary to manage research teams and to become successful mentors themselves. This renewal application builds upon the highly successful experiences of the current and prior funding cycles in nurturing faculty from both geriatric medicine and a variety of medical subspecialties, including both physicians and PhD investigators. We will continue to expand upon the advances made in the current cycle to support investigators pursuing basic and translational research programs in addition to those pursuing clinical research programs, encouraging them to embrace the complexities of multifactorial geriatric conditions. The inclusion of three groups of REC investigators will allow us to provide support to an expanded group of junior faculty and fellows, with a level of support appropriate for their stage of training and evidence of commitment to aging research. The Pepper Scholars will receive (1) the most extensive financial support to protect their time for conducting research and (2) priority access to the Resource Cores to conduct their Pepper-supported projects. The Small REC Awardees will receive more modest financial support with the goal of developing strong candidates for subsequent Pepper Scholar funding. All three groups of REC investigators will receive research and career development support in a number of key areas, including: 1) appropriate mentorship in aging/geriatrics, especially for trainees new to aging research and/or in fields outside of geriatric medicine; 2) a didactic curriculum addressing key skills and knowledge necessary for the study of multifactorial geriatric conditions; 3) regular research-in-progress meetings to present their own work and to learn from the experiences of other early-stage investigators; 4) additional research meetings to learn from more experienced investigators; 5) a day-long career development retreat focused on aging-related research; 6) regular updates regarding research meetings, career development activities, and funding opportunities both within and outside of Yale; and 7) mentorship and Resource Core support for the development and writing of larger scale grant applications. In Year 1, we plan to support 3 Pepper Scholars (2 MDs, 1 PhD): a 1st year Assistant Professor in Neurology, a 2nd year Assistant Professor in Endocrinology, and a new Assistant Professor in Pathology.
The overarching mission of the Yale Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC), established in 1992, is to provide intellectual leadership and innovation for aging research that is directed at enhancing the independence of older persons. The unifying theme of the Yale OAIC remains the investigation of multifactorial geriatric conditions, encompassing single conditions resulting from multiple contributing factors or affecting multiple outcome domains and multiple conditions occurring simultaneously. The central Yale OAIC hypothesis is that geriatric conditions are determined by the co-occurrence of multiple predisposing and precipitating factors. These conditions and factors, in turn, affect a range of health outcomes. The predisposing factors may be at the genetic, molecular, physiologic, impairment, disease, or socio-demographic level, while the precipitating factors may be behavioral, environmental, social, medical, or psychological. The Yale OAIC theme requires designs and models (e.g. molecular, animal, and statistical) that inform the study of multiple, simultaneously interactive factors and outcomes. As a prominent subtheme, the Yale OAIC also aims to advance the science of clinical decision making in the face of trade-offs and multiple competing outcomes. This includes developing strategies to elicit older persons’ health outcome priorities. The Specific Aims of the Yale OAIC are to: 1) foster the career development of future academic leaders, from multiple disciplines, in aging research; 2) train investigators, biostatisticians and other methodologists in the skills necessary to design, conduct, analyze, and disseminate findings from studies of multifactorial geriatric conditions; 3) develop and disseminate design and analytic techniques for conducting studies of multifactorial geriatric conditions; 4) develop strategies for recruiting into, and retaining, a broad spectrum of older persons, including minorities, into studies of multifactorial geriatric conditions; 5) investigate the causative mechanisms of, and develop and test effective treatments for, geriatric conditions from a multifactorial research perspective; 6) develop strategies to enhance clinical decision making in the setting of multiple competing outcomes; 7) encourage and facilitate interdisciplinary research (basic, translational and clinical) that connects to our focus on multifactorial geriatric conditions; and 8) further strengthen collaborations with other OAICs. The Yale OAIC cores include: 1) Leadership and Administrative; 2) Research Education; 3) Pilot/Exploratory Studies; 4) Operations; and 5) Biostatistics. For the first one to two years of the next cycle, we propose to support 3 Pepper Scholars, 3 pilot studies, 2 development projects, and 29 externally funded projects. The Yale OAIC has made outstanding progress during the current funding cycle, as evidenced by publication of 411 manuscripts (with an additional 23 submitted) and receipt of more than $178 million in grants (total costs), with an additional $16.3 million pending. Based on grants received, the return on investment from OAIC support is more than 20 to 1.
The overarching objective of the Leadership and Administrative Core (LAC) is to advance the scientific knowledge base of multifactorial geriatric conditions. The LAC, which is led by two board-certified geriatric physician investigators with complementary expertise, is responsible for strategic planning, organization, administrative operations and evaluation of the OAIC research and training program. A special effort is devoted to ensure the cohesion of the Center and maintenance of an interdisciplinary and translational research focus on the common research theme, which is "the investigation of multifactorial geriatric conditions". The key LAC tasks are achieved by the Core Leader (Dr. Thomas Gill), Co-Leader (Dr. Terri Fried), Associate Leader, two Administrators, and three committees: the Executive Committee, the Internal Advisory Committee, and the External Advisory Committee. The LAC has gained much experience, knowledge, and understanding of OAIC operations over its 25 years of continuous funding, including the past 15 years under the P30 mechanism. We will build on the strong existing collaborative relationships and cumulative expertise as we enter our next funding cycle. The Specific Aims of the LAC are to: (1) oversee the coordination, integration, and administration of all aspects of the OAIC, including the utilization of core resources, and foster collaborations with other research and training programs that will help to accomplish the OAIC goals; (2) promote the conduct of academically productive, innovative, high impact, and clinically safe research by Pepper Scholars, other early-stage investigators, Pilot/Exploratory Studies (PESs), Resource Cores, and External Projects; (3) ensure the independent review and oversight of OAIC research and the training of Pepper Scholars and other early-stage investigators; (4) foster the career development of junior faculty/other trainees from multiple disciplines into independent investigators and academic leaders in aging research; (5) recruit and encourage outstanding early-stage investigators and senior faculty to focus their research on aging, particularly multifactorial geriatric conditions, with an emphasis on translation between basic and clinical research; (6) identify and facilitate productive collaborations with other OAICs and institutions; and (7) monitor university, government and fiscal matters, ensure the preparation of necessary progress reports and administrative documents relating to the award, and collaborate with the NIA project office and Coordinating Center on OAIC activities. Taken together, the LAC provides support for planning, organizational, evaluation, and administrative activities relating to the other Cores and to the OAIC as a whole. The LAC is responsible for monitoring, stimulating, sustaining, evaluating, and reporting progress toward the overall goals of the Yale OAIC.
