The Stony Brook Center for Healthy Aging (CHA) unites leading researchers and clinicians who are focused on enhancing the health and wellness of people as they age.

The goal of the CHA is to promote healthy aging and extend both physical and mental well-being through innovative research solutions. Stony Brook is a leading institution in aging research, with a collective $23 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other sources. Paired with one of the country’s largest academic geriatric practices, an Age-Friendly Health System and the Stony Brook Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease, Stony Brook is optimally positioned to improve the understanding and treatment of age-related conditions. 

The CHA is a collaboratory, promoting the organization and coordination of this significant expertise and infrastructure at Stony Brook Medicine (SBM), including the five Health Sciences Schools—including the RSOM and the schools of Health Professions, Dental Medicine, Nursing, and Social Welfare—and the Program in Public Health, Stony Brook University (SBU), as well as affiliated institutions such as the Northport VA and the Long Island State Veterans Home.

Initially funded by the Stony Brook University Presidential Innovation and Excellence Fund, the CHA fits into the missions of both SBM and SBU of patient care, education, research and community service. Through its unifying goal, the CHA will coordinate aging research on campus, promote bidirectional interactions between researchers in aging and geriatricians, and transform the care of the aging population in Suffolk County and beyond.

COMING UP:

CHA Monthly Seminar Series: FULL DETAILS HERE

• November 20, 11 am: Gregorio Valdez, PhD, GLF Translational Associate Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University, Erosion of motor commands with aging: are synapses in muscles and the spinal cord responsible?
• December 18, 11 am: Laura Niedernhofer, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics. Director, Institute on the Biology of Aging & Metabolism (iBAM) and Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, DNA damage and repair, genome instability disorders, cellular senescence and aging

For more upcoming meetings and events, please click here.

CHA IN THE NEWS: 

Newsday, 10/17/2024: "Heart disease, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions over 60: What to know and how to improve your health" | READ MORE

SBU News, 8/20/2024: "Virologist Aims at Halting Dangerous Neurological Effects of Powassan Virus" | READ MORE

• Update, 10/24/2024: Erich R. Mackow, PhD, professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) and a core member of Stony Brook’s Center for Infectious Diseases, says: "Powassan virus (POWV) is a neurovirulent tick-borne virus that in the elderly causes 10% fatal encephalitis and severe long-term neurologic damage in 50% of survivors. The Mackow lab recently developed a murine model that recapitulates lethal age-dependent POWV neurovirulence that is reduced 10-fold in young mice. POWV pathology in aged mice mirrors spongiform damage found in elderly patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that is driven by age-dependent cellular senescence. Using an Award from the Center for Healthy Aging (CHA) at Stony Brook University, the Mackow lab has begun to investigate the role of “Senescent” cells in the Central Nervous System as a cause of POWV neurovirulence. The CHA award has permitted analysis of POWV pathology in the CNS of aged mice using single cell RNA sequencing approaches. The CHA Award has been critical to obtaining funding from the NIH for studying mechanisms of POWV neuropathogenesis, the role of senescent cells in the age-dependent POWV lethality and the development of therapeutics and recombinant POWV vaccines at SBU."