The 36th Annual Meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE) combined with the 21st Meeting of the American College of Clinical Gerontology will be held in San Antonio, Texas, June 1-4, 2007. The theme selected for the 2007 meeting is """"""""Current Directions in Studying Mechanisms of Aging"""""""". The goal of this meeting is to assemble a group of scientists working in diverse areas of experimental gerontology to review and discuss recent developments in this field. The AGE meeting provides an excellent forum for presentation of recent advances in aging research, and it also represents a key mechanism for recruiting new students/faculty into aging. Based on the growing participation of past meetings, we anticipate that at least 325 scientists, clinicians, students and lay people will attend the 2007 meeting of AGE. In the program for the meeting, we have assembled a variety of topics at the forefront of aging research to be presented. The aging process is most certainly multi-factorial and the approaches and directions highlighted in this program were chosen to reflect this. The program will consist of invited lectures arranged into six major sessions, each consisting of three to four presentations and incorporating ample time for discussion. We will also include two sessions consisting of short platform presentations chosen from the Abstracts submitted by registrants. A poster session will also be included to allow registrants to participate directly in the meeting by presenting their data. Other key elements of the program include a debate session on the relationship between aging and evolution and a session devoted to enhance graduate students' participation in gerontological research. In addition, for the second year, we will include a session that will be fully funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom to support presentation by the British Scientists at this meeting and to encourage cross-Atlantic collaboration. We are asking for funds to bring in 21 outside speakers for the central program of the meeting that will highlight the following key areas: insights on mechanisms of aging gained from a comparative biology approach, using genetic approaches to study aging in invertebrates, mice and humans, the role of metabolism in modulating the aging process, specifically the role of IGF-1 and nutrient sensing, and finally, recent studies in the area of stem cell biology that are relevant for increasing our understanding of aging and age related disease. Financial assistance is also requested to provide travel stipends to young investigators and those in training who are presenting a poster or a platform session to encourage their participation in the meeting and their interest in aging research. Special efforts will be devoted to encourage participation of underrepresented minorities. The meeting will be preceded by a Pre- Conference workshop, funded by outside sources, on Therapeutic Intervention in the Aging Process that will include presentations by speakers who are exploring therapeutic targets and potential interventions in vertebrate and invertebrate models. ? ? ?
