An Unusual Source of Inspiration

See also:
-- 'Books Forum' blog
-- 'Health Studies' blog


Greetings,

I wonder what kinds of inspiration do you have in your life and research activities? Is it a great music, inspiring picture, absorbing book, scenic views, and/or a significant other?

Recently I have encountered a new unusual source of inspiration -- the NIH Summary Statement! Usually it is considered to be a bureaucratic document, which summarizes the results of a closed discussion of your research proposal by the panel of experts at the National Institute of Health, NIH. Typically this is a candid anonymous review, which is often painful to read to a scientist, the author of the reviewed proposal.

However, this time things are completely different. Our new research project was thoroughly evaluated by a review panel of 20 experts at NIH and the project was rated as being among the best 5 percent of all approved (scored) applications. Here is what they wrote (excerpts):

Summary Statement for Project "Biodemography of Exceptional Longevity in the United States"

Resume and Summary of Discussion:

"This ... application, by an eminent investigator, would use a variety of modeling methods to determine the social and biological factors linked to living to age 100. This is a major question for all fields of aging research. It is highly innovative application because it is going to examine a large relatively representative sample of those who reach 100. The approach is well-suited to the aims of the project. ... Strengths of the application include the significance of the aims, an innovative and carefully considered research design, a solid research team, supporting pilot research and well specified analytical methods. "


Critique 1:

Significance:
"This ... application, addresses early life covariates of extreme longevity in the U.S. This is a significant research topic with potential implications for health intervention in premature mortality and the proposed research could provide important confirmation, or refutation, of many theorized early life covariates of longevity."

Approach:
".... this is an innovative application utilizes genealogical, census, social-security, Internet and military data in a well crafted research design. "

Innovation:
"The application is an innovative one with a creative sample construction."

Investigators:
"This is an outstanding research team with an eminent Principal Investigator."

Overall Evaluation:
"This ... application, by an eminent investigator, would use a variety of modeling methods to study the effect of early life course circumstances on cases of extreme longevity in the United States. Strengths of the application include the significance of the aims, an innovative and carefully considered research design, a solid research team, supporting pilot research and well specified analytical methods."


Critique 2:

Significance:
"... a highly significant application. The project addresses important questions with an extremely innovative approach. Why some people live to 100 and others do not has been a focus of much NIA research, although much of this longevity research has been performed on other species. This application will provide increased understanding of how humans survive to very old ages using representative populations."

Approach:
"This application is harnessing the resources available on the Internet to address a very important scientific question. How do both social and biological factors affect the likelihood of living to very old age. The investigators have an unusually thorough command of both biological and the social literature appropriate to this question. The project will result in the examination of about 3,000 centenarians. Information on their early, adult, and later life is available. The combination of Census, Army, and Genealogical data is truly exciting. In addition, areal level data will be appended which has not been done before in analyses of long lives."

Innovation:
"The project is quite exciting because of the careful planning behind the proposed collection of available data in a novel way to address an important question which has not been well-addresses to date."

Investigators:
"This is an excellent team. The Principal Investigator, Leonid Gavrilov, is well-recognized as a biologist but he has made remarkable strides in becoming very multidisciplinary through the mechanism of a K award. The co Principal Investigator, Gavrilova, is also well-recognized as a biologist with many important publications related to the project. She, too, has undertaken recent training by getting a master's in computer science from the University of Chicago. This application builds on this strength in its approach to data collection."

Overall Evaluation:
"This is ... application with the major goals of determining social and biological factors linked to living to 100. This is a highly significant area because this is a major question for all fields of aging research. The approach is well-suited to the aims of the project. It is highly innovative application because it is going to examine a large relatively representative sample of those who reach 100. The major strengths of the application are its innovative use of publicly available data."


Critique 4:

Significance:
"This application will attempt to identify early life characteristics, which are associated with extreme long life. This is a highly significant issue. It has significant potential, depending upon the variables identified, to inform public health policy concerning longevity."

Innovation:
"This is an innovative study. It will assemble a unique data set concerning the early life characteristics of the elderly and a set of "controls". This will be a unique and useful resource for analysis of early life effects on mortality.

Investigators:
"This is an excellent research team. Gavrilov and Gavrilova are both productive and experienced researchers in the area of human aging."

Environment:
"The environment at the University of Chicago is excellent."

Overall Evaluation:
"This is ... application by an eminent research team that will assemble and analyze a unique data set concerning early life conditions on extreme longevity. In particular, the study will focus on socio economic factors and height and build. The analysis is well described and theoretically justified for the most part."

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So we have now a new awarded research project of certified high scientific merit, and we are open to collaboration on this new NIH Longevity Study !

Please feel free to post your comments and suggestions below by clicking here.


Key words:
Inspiration, NIH Summary Statement, Longevity, centenarians, biodemography, NIH, NIA, longevity genes, parental age, birth order, early-life living conditions, adult physical characteristics, reproductive history, Biodemography of Exceptional Longevity, Leonid Gavrilov, Natalia Gavrilova, Center on Aging, United States, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Social Security Administration datasets, Census data, family reconstitutions, genealogies, military draft records, early-life childhood conditions.


Home:
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Longevity Science: An Unusual Source of Inspiration
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http://tinyurl.com/d9mgga
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http://tinyurl.com/NIH-approved

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The Quest for Human Longevity: - A Correction

See also:
-- 'Books Forum' blog
-- 'Health Studies' blog


Greetings,

Recently an interesting story on aging and longevity has been published by the Vancouver Sun:

It's an Old Story
Scientists, Engineers Replace Alchemists, Novelists in The Quest for Human Longevity
By Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun

This is a well-written article, which requires some corrections in the part where our scientific activities are described. Attached below are the corrected excerpts, with corrections marked in bold. Then the explanation follows why these corrections are made:

"Dr. Leonid Gavrilov, an American-Russian longevity researcher working at the Center on Aging, NORC/University of Chicago, wrote in the IEEE Spectrum that:

"Many researchers now believe that one day the human life span could be greatly extended by replenishing aging organs with stem cells. We are just now starting down this road. Such regenerative medicine and tissue engineering may sound like science fiction, but a growing number of scientists are taking the first steps to grow tissues and organs to replace failed ones. Laboratories around the world are making progress in building replacement lung, kidney, liver, and heart tissue."

"Gavrilov and his wife, Natalia Gavrilova, galvanized longevity research with their 1991 book, The Biology of Life Span: A Quantitative Approach, which is still cited as an authority by Encyclopedia Britannica."

"The two scientists studied the mathematical models of reliability theory devised by engineers to assess systems failure in computers and other complex machines and then applied them to the human body, shedding light on why and how human beings age and then die."

Here is why the corrections are made. It was written in the published story:

"Dr. Leonid Gavrilov, a Russian longevity researcher working at the University of Chicago, where he's a director of the Centre of Aging..."

while in fact I am an American-Russian researcher, and not a director, please see my publicly available resume here:

http://longevity-science.org/CV-gavrilov.htm

It was also written in the published story that allegedly I

"...told The Independent that "replacing damaged organs to greatly extend the human lifespan by substituting young and healthy for old and failing is no longer science fiction."

I do not recall saying this, and, moreover, please see my original published statement on this topic in bold above.

Hope this helps.

It is amazing to see these inaccuracies happen when the reporters write their stories without even contacting the subjects involved (me in this case). Obviously these mistakes could be easily avoided if the reporters contact me before their publication.

Key words:
Human Longevity, Vancouver Sun, Stephen Hume, Leonid Gavrilov, Center on Aging, NORC, University of Chicago, Natalia Gavrilova, Biology of Life Span, reliability theory, The Independent, Life-Extension, anti-ageing, anti-aging, ageing, aging, longevity


Home:
Longevity Science Blog
and
The Quest for Human Longevity: - A Correction
Shorter weblink:
http://tinyurl.com/d59ul4



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Human Aging Starts Before Birth

See also:
-- 'Books Forum' blog
-- 'Health Studies' blog


Greetings,

Here is an interesting interview given by British scientist Dr. Aubrey de Grey to a Russian newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" [New Newspaper], which is related to his recent scientific visit to Russia.

The title of this new story is "Human Aging Starts Before Birth", and it is published in Russian language. Some excerpts from this publication are translated in English and attached below:

Question from Reporter (Elena Kokurina):

- Dr. de Grey, there are many debates among scientists regarding aging. The question is not even about the methods of fighting with it, but rather what is aging in the first place. For example, why is it manifesting itself precisely at the end of life?

Answer by Dr. Aubrey de Grey:

- I believe, because the normal process of metabolism, which keeps us alive, produces cumulated side effects. Such as the loss of cells or the formation of “indigestible” molecules. For some period of time this damage is rather limited and it cannot affect the organism as a whole, but in the long run the damage becomes so extensive that the physiological functions deteriorate sharply.

However, the very process of aging process starts well before our birth, as it is demonstrated by recent studies. The first signs of atherosclerosis can be found even in newborn. Recently Leonid and Natalia Gavrilovs, the Russian researchers working in the USA, proved that starting at birth we already accumulate many defects, which are the beginning of aging.

Also here is the original Russian text for these excerpts:

Елена Кокурина:

— Д-р Ди Грей, среди ученых много разногласий по поводу старения. Речь идет даже не столько о методах борьбы с ним, сколько о том, что это такое. Например, почему оно проявляется именно в конце жизни?

Обри Ди Грей:

— Я считаю, из-за того что нормальные процессы обмена веществ в организме, благодаря которым мы живем, дают накапливающиеся побочные эффекты. Такие как потеря клеток или образование «неперевариваемых» молекул. Длительное время эти повреждения носят частный характер и не способны воздействовать на организм в целом, но, в конце концов, их становится столько, что физиологические функции резко ухудшаются.

Однако сам процесс старения начинается, как показывают последние исследования, еще до нашего рождения. Первые признаки атеросклероза можно найти даже у новорожденного. Недавно Леонид и Наталья Гавриловы, российские исследователи, работающие в США, доказали, что уже с рождения мы аккумулируем множество дефектов, которые являются началом старения.

Automatic computer translation of the entire interview could be found through the Bable Fish translator and the Google translator as well.

To read comments on this story, and to post your own thoughts, click here

See also:

- Старение: как отменить приговор?

- Смерти можно дать пивком под зад

- Технологии, способные остановить старение, могут быть разработаны в ближайшем будущем

- Бессмертие человека не за горами
- Бессмертие человека не за горами,Interesting discussion


Pictures:
- Обри ди Грей,1
- Обри ди Грей,2
- Обри ди Грей,3
- Обри ди Грей,4

Key words:
SENS, Life-Extension, Aubrey de Grey, rejuvenation research, Leonid Gavrilov, Natalia Gavrilova, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, anti-ageing, anti-aging, ageing, aging, longevity, Novaya Gazeta, Elena Kokurina, Russia, Елена Кокурина,Обри Ди Грей


Home:
Longevity Science Blog
and
Human Aging Starts Before Birth
Shorter weblink:
http://tinyurl.com/cfn4tf


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