Mapping Out Longevity Research

A major supporter of scientific studies in the United States has prepared a roadmap to guide the future of medical research. Scientists conducting aging-related investigations hope that the map will help them find new directions in the fight against aging and its diseases.

Maps often help the lost find their way along well-traveled routes. But in a flip-flop of traditional cartography, scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)--the federal organization that funds the bulk of medical studies in the United States--have drawn a map that they hope will help lay new roads for investigators to follow. Over the past year, groups of scientists have gathered to debate the directions that the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research will take. The final plan presents nine new strategies for studying and treating disease, for bringing together investigators from different fields and institutes, and for revamping the way clinical research is done.

NIH's nine approaches to improving medical research range from developing specific technologies to encouraging collaborations between publicly funded labs and privately funded institutions. Although the roadmap is intended as a guide for scientists working in a broad spectrum of fields, immunologist Richard Hodes--director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in Bethesda, Maryland--says it offers directions that are "highly relevant" to aging-related research. For example, one strategy outlined in the plan involves inventing faster ways to identify genes, including those that might speed up or slow down how quickly laboratory organisms age, Hodes says. Such findings can then be followed up in clinical studies, another area the map aims to improve.

NIA behavioral scientist Richard Suzman says the impact of the roadmap will likely be "more in terms of attitude," particularly for those who study aging. For example, researchers are used to slogging away in their own little worlds. But the authors of the roadmap hope to encourage investigators from different disciplines to work together. Such collaborations could foster innovation and expedite new discoveries, Hodes says. What's more, the roadmap directs investigators to identify any speed bumps or roadblocks that might impede their progress. For example, one research team might get bogged down learning new techniques that could be more easily handled by a collaborator. In another case, scientists from wildly disparate fields might need to develop a common vocabulary before they could work together.

Of particular importance for aging-related research is the recommendation that universities develop training programs "aimed at expanding the pool and quality of people able to do clinical research," says NIA geriatrician Evan Hadley. Such a program will be valuable, says Hodes, because health care providers and investigators aren't adequately trained to do aging-related medical research. One way that NIH plans to advance this cause, says Hadley, is by providing career-development funds to basic scientists who are interested in moving into the clinic but do not have the experience they need. Many basic researchers spend their careers in the laboratory working with petri dishes and test tubes. Clinical research requires designing experiments that involve human subjects--organisms not so easily manipulated as a flask of bacteria.

And in gerontology, clinical research itself is changing. Ailments that would have killed people a few decades ago have been converted to chronic illnesses. As a result, says Hodes, "aging-related research is moving away from acute intervention for acute illness in a hospital setting." Instead, physicians are considering new ways for treating the elderly outside the medical center, at home or in the community. And because diseases that accompany aging usually come in bunches, he says, "we need to address multiple problems at the same time."

Just as clinicians need to think broadly about the diseases that accompany aging, basic researchers in gerontology must draw upon fields as diverse as evolutionary biology and neuroendocrinology. Thus they have much to gain from the roadmap's call for the formation of interdisciplinary teams uniting experts from a range of specialties, such as genetics and behavioral science--a cross between nature and nurture. These multidisciplinary teams will create novel ways of approaching problems related to aging.

To facilitate such fusion, the roadmap provides one or two superhighways that will allow a few researchers to accelerate the pace of performing experiments and analyzing results. These thoroughfares will support funding of high-risk, potentially high-return projects. "NIH has been excessively cautious," says Suzman. "Grant writers need extraordinary detail and a lot of data for grants." Rather than require scientists to complete a large amount of legwork before applying for an NIH award, the plan includes funding for "a few exceptional investigators on the basis of slim proposals"--decided by peer review, of course.

The initial phase of the plan's implementation calls for research proposals that address the nine approaches laid out in the roadmap. Initially, large groups of researchers will apply to NIH to create new "infrastructure," such as developing a clinical research database that can track studies and standardize clinical methods. Once this infrastructure is in place, smaller groups of researchers will apply for funding to use those new technologies and resources.

When it comes to pursuing new technologies, NIA may be ahead of the curve, says NIA molecular biochemist Felipe Sierra. For instance, he says, "we've already requested applications for research that applies proteomics to aging." In the same way that scientists sequenced the human chromosomes to find all our genes, proteomics will reveal all the proteins within cells and allow researchers to figure out how cells change with age. "We've been trying to tackle one molecule at a time," says Sierra. "We need to get a comprehensive idea of how things all go together."

Studying proteins is proving much more technologically demanding than studying genes, however. So scientists need to develop techniques to catalog proteins and small molecules and to study how they operate together to enable cells to function--or malfunction as we grow old.

Such technologies can help the field of aging-related research immensely. For example, investigators might want to characterize how growing old changes the proteins that circulate in blood. Amounts of damaged proteins rise with age, says Sierra. Scientists need methods that can detail which proteins or parts of proteins are most affected. Clinicians on the multidisciplinary team can then design diagnostics or treatments to combat the effects of aging.

The authors of the roadmap hope that its nine approaches will incubate novel scientific data and technologies; researchers who study aging hope it will escort their field to maturity. Perhaps, in the next decade, scientists will need only type a disease into the NIH MapQuest program to find a direct route to where they're going.

Mary Beckman writes from Idaho because her map extends only to the state's boundaries.