10^th Annual Alliance for Healthy Aging Conference: A partnership of The Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at Mayo Clinic, The University Medical Center Groningen, and Newcastle University Institute for Ageing

The Alliance for Healthy Aging was founded by The Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA) and, from the Netherlands, the University Medical Center Groningen (Groningen), the University of Groningen, the Noaber Foundation (Lunteren) and Vita Valley (Ede). It is holding a series of annual meetings dedicated to translational research on aging with the objective to bring together scientists, clinicians, engineers, providing a forum for the exchange of ideas.

History: In June 2010, the first meeting, The Next Step in Aging Research: From Bench to Bedside: A Forum for Collaboration between Clinicians and Researchers, focused on the basic biology of aging and its relationship to clinical practice.  It was a resounding success. In October 2011, the second meeting was held in Groningen, entitled Healthy Aging and Independent Living: Countering Frailty and Maintaining Independence.  In November 2012, the conference was held back at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota with the conference topic Senescence and Healthspan.  The 2013 conference topic in Groningen was on Molecular Mechanisms of Age-Related Multi Morbidity, and the 2014 conference title in Rochester was Frailty and Healthspan: Bench to Bedside to Home.  In 2015, Newcastle University Institute for Ageing teamed up with Coimbra University to support the creation of a new Multidisciplinary Institute for Ageing at Coimbra, Portugal.  The Alliance welcomed collaboration with Newcastle/Coimbra, which hosted the 6th Annual Conference on Interventions to Slow Down Ageing at Slaley Hall in the North of England in November 2015.  In 2016, the conference was unexpectedly cancelled due to landfall of Hurricane Mathew, just days ahead of the scheduled conference.  In 2017, the University Medical Center Groningen hosted the very successful 8th Annual Conference, Metabolism and Ageing. In 2018 the conference was titled Molecular Mechanisms of Organ System Crosstalk and Failure with Aging, held in Rochester, MN.

This year, our conference, titled “Intervention from Mice to Humans”, will be held in Newcastle, UK. Program Coordinators include Professor Dr Thomas von Zglinicki from Newcastle, Dr Marco Demaria from UMCG, and Dr Diana Jurk from Mayo Clinic, Rochester.

Benefits: The meeting will foster research collaborations, act as a springboard for new research grants and directions, and accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries to clinical practice by bringing together an expert and interdisciplinary panel with unique clinical, scientific, and commercial perspectives.

Program Description: The meeting will take place over three days. Sessions will be organized around key topics. Each session will have a chair and co-chair. Presentations by invited speakers will consist of a 25 minute talk to include 5 to 10 minutes of discussion. To encourage participants to engage across different areas of research and focus, the meeting will not have concurrent sessions.

Topics for the 2019 conference include: 1) Biological Ageing and Frailty 2) Reversing Premature Ageing 3) Brain Ageing/Dementia 4) Vascular and Metabolic Ageing 5) Muscular Ageing and Sarcopenia 6) Extending Healthspan