Research Resources

The Geriatrics Center provides a rich intellectual environment and many resources to support the work of researchers striving to learn more about aging and age-related diseases, with the goal of improving the health of older adults. These include:

• A fully equipped biomechanics laboratory for study of mobility, strength, and balance, used for studies of how to improve the mobility of older individuals and reduce their chances of falling.
• A set of biological research laboratories studying the ways in which aging changes immune defenses, memory and learning, and bone fragility. The research faculty, supported by over $9,000,000 of grants each year, works closely with other laboratory scientists and clinical scholars using the methods of genetics, biochemistry, neuroscience, and cell biology to clarify the aging process and its effects on late-life illnesses.
• A highly respected educational program, supported by training grants from NIH, the Hartford Foundation, Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center and others, to help medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty members keep up to date on the latest advances in geriatrics and allied branches of medical science.
• A Core Facility for Aged Rodents (CFAR), which provides U-M Geriatrics Center researchers with access to rare varieties of mice specially suited for studies of aging. CFAR rodents have been used in dozens of published scientific papers, and a mouse strain developed by CFAR has been selected by the National Institute on Aging for nationwide distribution to other medical schools and research institutes.

The Research Career Development Core and Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core together provide high quality mentoring and pilot grant support to U-M junior faculty scientists who are already well trained in basic medical research and who wish to acquire the special skills needed to succeed in geriatric and biogerontology research. The Center takes special pride in the many researchers, supported by its training Cores, who have gone on to develop highly productive careers as medical scientists at the University of Michigan or other prestigious universities.