Key Highlights:
- MCG researchers have been awarded a grant of $9.3 million from national health institutes.
- A $79,000 NIH training grant has been awarded to 11 new medical emerging students from Puerto Rico’s four medical schools.
- The United States Society of Geriatrics expects 30,000 Geriatricians by 2030.
Stimulating Trainees
In the first and second years of medical school, a dozen students from Puerto Rico and Georgia spent the summer living and learning at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University with the intention of motivating them to pursue a career in aging science and geriatrics.
The Program for Aging Research in Summer (PARIS) is an extension of a training course initiated in 2017. In training, researchers from the MCG acquired a 9.3 million dollars grant from the national health institutes. Consequently, that explores the age of bones and muscles to enhance their health.
Dr. Wendy Bollagen, part of the research team of the program and co‐principal investigator of a program-wide new NIH training program, states “We allocated the money for the education of medical students as part of that award to deal with the significant development of the aging population.” “We had this great pilot project previously and usually were getting more people than we could take. Accordingly, we wanted to improve on it. And also helps in recruiting and retaining more underprivileged minorities in science.”
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Students Collaborating with Researchers
A $79,000 T35 NIH Training grant abides awarded to 11 newly emerging medical students from four medical schools in Puerto Rico. The University of Puerto Rico, the Ponce University, and the University of Caribe, San Juan Bautista School of Medicine. One student is a rising medical student at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia for a second year.
The students endure coupled with an MCG aging scientist. They were also exhibiting courses on the newest and best research technologies. Students participated in weekly science lectures and journal clubs of the MCG Center for Healthy Aging. Students were also able to share the shadow of MCG and AU Health Physicians. They treat patients with age-related health problems such as osteoporosis, arthritis, and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Carlos Isales, the other co-director of the training project, and is also co-director of the Center for Healthy Aging, adds that PARIS’s overall objective is to develop an experience. It ideally would stimulate student’s enthusiasm in continuing their careers in aging research and health care.
Investigation on Aging
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2034, 77 million people ages 65 and older will be in the population, comparing to 76.5 million under 18. In the USA there are about 7,300 geriatrics. And the American Geriatrics Society expects 30 thousand geriatricians by 2030.
“What will we do if this major problem isn’t addressed to us? There are a whole host of diseases that begin to show when you are older, including difficulties of fragility, dementia, hip fractures, and heart failure,” Isales notes. He also states that stressing that these types of conditions strain the healthcare system as well as individual charges. “We must start to get things crisp before it turns out to be a disaster. “People are live longer, and the main thing we want is that people don’t only live longer, we want them to live healthier,” added Bollag.” To do this, we need people who perform research in aging. We should understand what is wrong with the aging process and what mechanisms are uses to help develop medicines or other countermeasures such as nutrition or exercise to prolong the health of a lengthy period of health.”
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