Newcastle awarded UKRI funding for Ageing Research Translation (ART) of Healthy Ageing Network

Prof Miles Witham, BRC Deputy Theme Lead for Ageing Syndromes and Prof Avan Sayer, BRC Director lead the collaboration which has been awarded £200,000 from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The ART of Healthy Ageing network will bring together people from a wide range of disciplines, including the biology of ageing, epidemiology, physiology, geriatric medicine, clinical trials and data science. These people, with complementary expertise, will work together to build the necessary capacity, knowledge and resources for effective translation of advances in ageing biology and epidemiology into interventions for human testing. The network plans to engage with many different stakeholders including the public, charities, policymakers, industry and regulators to help shape the research agenda and for knowledge transfer.

Prof Witham comments:

“Major advances are being made in the biology and epidemiology of ageing, but these advances are not always being translated from the laboratory to the clinic. Collaborations formed through the ART Network will allow for significant capacity building and infrastructure development and facilitate delivery of a clear plan and proof-of-concept for a translational platform for healthy ageing across the life course.”

The network will be established in collaboration with Prof Rachel Cooper and Dr Kelly Bowden Davies (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Prof Claire Stewart and Dr Sandra Ortega-Martorell (Liverpool John Moores University) and is one of eleven projects awarded as part of the ageing across the life course interdisciplinary research network funding call.