American Federation for Aging Research
/OVERVIEW: The American Federation for Aging Research makes a wide range of aging-focused grants, funding efforts to increase the knowledge base for healthy aging, boost the number of doctors practicing geriatric medicine, innovate in aging research and help people live longer and healthier lives.
IP TAKE: Many of AFAR’s grants are made in collaboration with other geriatric-focused organizations. Grantseekers would do well to look into the grantmaking opportunities of those organizations in addition to AFAR’s before applying. Applicants must also be affiliated with a non-profit research institute, university or hospital. Some programs are limited to the U.S., while others accept applications from individuals or organizations anywhere in the world.
This is an accessible funder, but grants are competitive. Make sure your proposal is clearly written and don’t hesitate to reach out to the foundation if you have questions. Specific areas of priority may also change from year to year, so it may be worthwhile to check the organization’s funding opportunities page periodically.
PROFILE: The American Federation for Aging Research was established in 1981 by Dr. Irving S. Wright, professor emeritus of Cornell University Medical College and former president of the American Heart Association, and awarded its first grants in 1982. The foundation’s overall mission is to “support and advance healthy aging through biomedical research.” Its main strategy involves funding cutting-edge aging research while encouraging more doctors and researchers to specialize in geriatric medicine. The goal of AFAR is to discover and understand the biomedical mechanisms of aging to help people lead healthier and more productive lives as they grow older. AFAR generally works with other organizations to support individual researchers with Research Grants and in a wide variety of fields related to aging.
Grants for Public Health and Brain and Cell Research
AFAR awards grants to researchers associated with universities, hospitals, and non-profit research institutions in the United States. These grants vary in size, duration, and eligibility requirements.
The Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Bioloy and Geroscience Research program provides as many as 18 three-year grants of $375,000 to “junior investigators (MDs and/or PhDs) with at least 3 years of independent research, who conduct research projects in basic biology of aging or geroscience.” This program is global in scope, with initial funding prioritizing research in the areas of mitochondrial dysfunction, deregulated nutrient sensing, epigenetic alteration, partial reprogramming, aging of the immune system, microbiome function and gene therapy, as well as translational research in these areas.
The Hevolution Foundation Scientific Conferences Fund provides nonprofit organizations from anywhere in the world with $10,000 grants “for the support of scientific meetings, conferences, and workshops relevant to the mission of the Hevolution Foundation.”
The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty aims to “assist in the development of the careers of junior investigators committed to pursuing careers in the field of aging research.” This program prioritizes projects concerning the “basic mechanisms of aging” rather than disease-specific research. AFAR awards up to 10 grants of $100,000 for one- to two-year periods.
Paul Beeson Career Development Awards in Aging Research aims to “develop a cadre of talented scientists prepared and willing to take an active leadership role in transformative change that will lead to improved health care outcomes.” This is a three- to five-year award that ranges from $600,000 to $800,000.
The Glenn Foundation Breakthroughs in Gerontology Award supports “a small number of research projects that are relatively high risk but which offer significant promise of yielding transforming discoveries in the fundamental biology of aging.” This award offers up to $300,000 over a three-year period.
The Glenn Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Aging Research is aimed at researchers who “specifically direct their research towards basic aging mechanisms and/or translational findings that have direct benefits to human aging.” Another joint effort between AFAR and the Glenn Foundation, grants from this program are awarded for one year in amounts ranging from $49,000 to $60,000.
The McKnight Brain Research Foundation Innovator Awards in Cognitive Aging and Memory Loss consist of two separate awards of $750,000 distributed over a three-year period to support the research of assistant- and associate-level professors. One of the two awards supports clinical translation research, while the second supports research on “basic biological mechanisms underlying conginitive againg and age-related memory loss.”
The Small Research Grant Program for the Next Generation of Researchers in Alzheimer’s Disease are awarded in collaboration with the National Institute on Aging and support “innovative research in areas in which more scientific investigation is needed to improve the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Two-year grants of $200,000 each have been awarded in past years, but the amount and duration of future awards may vary.
Sagol Network GerOmic Award for Junior Faculty aims to support “the development of the careers of junior investigators committed to pursuing careers in the field of aging research and ger-omics, –omics research focused on aging and/or age-related disease research in particular.” The awards consist of $125,000 one- or two-year grants with priority given to studies in the fields of genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, methylomics and comparative or interdisciplinary studies in these areas.
Grants for Higher Education
In addition to grants for faculty-level researchers, AFAR also offers scholarship and fellowship opportunities for” medical students and graduate students, including:
Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) Program. Administered by AFAR and the National Institute on Aging, this program provides medical students with several months of structured research and clinical training in geriatrics and related fields, at either an AFAR National Training Center or an MSTAR-participating medical school in New York. A stipend of approximately $1,980 per month is also provided.
Diana Jacobs Kalman/AFAR Scholarships for Research in the Biology of Aging. Yet another joint effort between AFAR and the Glenn Foundation, this program gives students enrolled in Ph.D, MD or DO programs the opportunity to carry out a three-to-six month research project on a biomedical aspect of aging.
Important Grant Details:
Research grants generally range from $50,000 to $300,000 for one- to three-year periods. While there are no citizenship requirements, applicants must be affiliated with a U.S.-based institution. To get a broad sense of the projects AFAR supports, grantseekers may review its grantees list.
Deadlines, guidelines, and eligibility may vary by program, so grantseekers should review the offerings carefully before applying.
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