Happy 50th to the National Institute on Aging and Happy 30th to the Nathan Shock Centers

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in 2024, it might also be appropriate to remind ourselves that it is also the 30th anniversary of the initial Request for Applications for the Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, now in their 29th year of existence. These centers were named for Nathan Shock, who served for 35 years as head of the Gerontology Research Center Branch of the National Institute on Aging and helped put the study of human aging on a firm scientific foundation. In his research, Dr. Shock stressed the importance of longitudinal studies, and to that end co-founded in 1958 the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging,1 still the most comprehensive, continuous longitudinal study of human aging, now going strong in its 66th year. The Nathan Shock Centers were the brain child of Richard A. Sprott, Director of what is now the Division of Aging Biology of the NIA. He felt that basic, mechanistic aging research needed the same sort of centers of excellence that clinical research and care had achieved 5 years earlier with the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers (OAICs). Specifically, the initial Shock Centers were developed to enhance the quality of basic, mechanistic studies of aging at institutions that had demonstrated a commitment to, and expertise in, research in that field. The initial centers were also charged with providing a fertile environment for training fellows and junior faculty in research skills and experience in basic aging research, something that would have been close to the heart of Nathan Shock, who trained more than 200 scientists and researchers during his career.2 The program grew from its initial three centers to five centers by the year 2000 and has expanded to eight centers today (Figure 1). From their original goal of enhancing research and training at institutions with already well-developed basic aging research programs, the Nathan Shock Centers mission has since expanded and turned outward—evolving to include national and international leadership in the field of aging biology through intellectual and conceptual engagement that advances their areas of focus and provides general expert opinion through publications, workshops, and other venues. These days they also provide technical resources, expertise, and training specific to basic aging researchers (Table 1) at institutions with less well-developed research resources in aging. They continue to offer pilot grants to early career investigators now focusing both on researchers at their own institutions but also to researchers from other institutions. In recent years, in fact, more pilot grants using Shock Center resources have been awarded to researchers at external institutions than to those at the home institution. Shock Centers also provide the larger research community symposia and seminars throughout the year. Proteostasis of Aging Core Healthspan Core Human Multi-omics Core Research Development Core Animal and Phenotyping Core Data and Statistical Core Research and Development Core Image Analysis Core Program Enhancement Core Research Development Core Multiplexing Protein Analysis Core Genomic Sciences Core Geroscience Redox Biology Core Geroinformatics Core Administrative Program Enrichment Core Research and Development Core Aging Animals and Longevity Assessment Core Integrated Physiology of Aging Core Pathology Core Analytical Pharmacology and Drug Evaluation Core Program Enrichment Core Research Development Core Human Cell Models of Aging Core Heterogeneity of Aging Core Integrative Models of Aging Core Administrative/Program Enrichment Core Comparative Organismal Energetics Core Comparative Data Analytics Core Comparative Mitochondrial Health Assessment Core Research Development Core Administrative/Program Enrichment Core Research Development Core Genomic Translation Across Species Core Cellular Senescence and Beyond Core Geroscience Technology Core Administrative Core Research Development Core Protein Phenotypes of Aging Core Metabolite Phenotypes of Aging Core Invertebrate Longevity and Healthspan Core Artificial Intelligence and Bioinformatics Core Since their beginning, Shock Centers can be said to have helped pioneer the application of new technologies to many, especially junior investigators doing research in areas such as oxidative stress, proteomics, metabolomics, invertebrate, and vertebrate healthspan measurements, provision of transgenic mice, various dietary formulations of drugs, state-of-the art animal maintenance facilities, and a host of other areas. For most of their history, each Shock Center operated largely independently, despite the early aspiration of establishing communication and even collaborations among the centers. To facilitate this aspirational goal in 2017, the NIA funded the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center, fondly known as the NSC3, housed at the American Federation for Aging Research. As its name implies, the NSC3 is charged with enhancing communication and collaboration among the centers, also enhancing their visibility to the general public as leaders in the research community.3 The NSC3 also serves as a forum of scientific exchange among NSC investigators and to the rest of the research community. It works with the NSC directors to develop, distribute, and implement a shared state-of-the art approach and commitment to the renewed NIH emphasis on rigor, reproducibility, and transparency in preclinical research. Furthermore, it is engaged in developing and implementing evaluation strategies for assessing the effectiveness of the NSCs. As one of the seven NIA-funded Center programs, the NSC3 and the eight Shock Centers work closely with the Research Centers Collaborative Network (RCCN), to further stimulate multidisciplinary collaborations and synergies. Moving forward into the mid-21st century, the aging research imperative is growing stronger and more obvious almost daily, and we see the Shock Centers provide the intellectual leadership to drive the translation of basic aging research discoveries into effective treatments and interventions with the potential for significant increases in healthy longevity. SNA and AR wrote the original text, and OW and SL revised and edited it. This publication comes from the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center funded by NIH/NIA grant U24 AG056053. SNA and AR are also supported by Nathan Shock Center grants P30 AG050886 and P30 AG050911, respectively. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. None.