Stony Brook Medicine (SBM) and Stony Brook University (SBU) have many existing strengths in aging research, education and patient care. Collectively, the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM), College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), and College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) have more than $17 million in research funding from the National Institute on Aging. Additional funding from other National Institutes of Health (NIH) components and the National Science Foundation raises the total to more than $23 million.
The RSOM has nationally prominent research programs in:
- Neuroscience (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease)
- Aging-associated inflammation (inflammaging)
- Metabolism and metabolomics with a focus on lipidomics (relevant to ketones and aging)
- DNA damage
State-of-the-art imaging facilities (MRI/PET) exist for imaging the aging brain, and there is a unique ability to generate novel PET tracers that will allow us to image new targets in the brain and body using the RSOM’s cyclotron core and the Brookhaven National Laboratory synchrotron.
All five of the Health Sciences Schools and the Program of Public Health have research, clinical and educational programs devoted to geriatrics. These include:
- The Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner Program in the School of Nursing
- The Center for Aging in Place in Suburbia created by the School of Social Welfare
- A National Science Foundation grant to create in-home sensing technologies for smart aging, which is a collaboration involving the CEAS, RSOM, School of Social Welfare and the School of Nursing.
Clinically, SBM has broad strengths in providing care for aging patients and innovative clinical research in geriatrics:
- The RSOM has a Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease supported by New York State.
- Stony Brook University Hospital pioneered the development of geriatric hospitalist medicine as a specialty and has been designated by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement as an age-friendly health system that includes unique features such as a geriatric emergency department.
- The World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program based at SBM now includes a cohort of patients who are being studied for Alzheimer’s disease-related dementia.
- The SBU campus houses the Long Island State Veterans Home, which provides residential and day care to more than 350 aging veterans and serves as an important teaching site for the geriatrics fellowship.
- The affiliated Northport VA Medical Center has both an acute care hospital and skilled nursing facility on one campus.
