On September 20-21, 2002, Caleb E. Finch, Mary Ann Ottinger, and Robert E. Ricklefs plan to convene the second Symposium on Organisms with Slow Aging (SOSA-2) at the University of Southern California. SOSA-2 will build on SOSA-1 held September 2000. SOSA-I considered evidence that some organisms show very slow aging with anti-aging mechanisms that are pertinent to human aging processes. Examples included vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants with spans in the range of humans and beyond. SOSA-2 will further build a comparative database for parameters of organismic aging. This database will provide a web-based source of readily available longitudinal data that have been collected from a variety of species and phyla. These individual, longitudinal data will attract additional researchers by these new opportunities for mathematical models of aging or new models for biochemical and molecular studies of aging. Selected speakers will address their own longitudinal data sets and be asked to evaluate the utility of their data in terms of recognized criteria in a comparative and dadistic context. The working criteria include the following categories: demographic (age-specific mortality rates and fecundity); molecular (e.g., oxidative damage and telomere DNA length); cellular-physiological change (e.g. cell turnover, neuroendocrine/endocrine function); and gross pathology (lens opacity/cataracts and arthritis).
Specific aims are to discuss longitudinal data in animal models; organize the building of a comparative database; and recruit new investigators and trainees to the comparative study of organisms with extended reproductive schedules and extreme longevity. A volunteer poster session will expand the range of organisms on the formal program and support the development of further interests by students and by researchers not so far identified with this new area.
