People – Biological Mechanisms Core

OAIC Logo 2012

Biological Mechanisms Core (Resource Core 2)

Overview
Key Accomplishments
Past and Current Projects
Available Resources

Key Personnel

The leadership of the Biological Mechanism Core *RC-2) includes:

  • Aravinda Chakravarti, PhD, Core Director, Professor of Medicine in the Institute for Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  • Jeremy Walston, MD, Co-Director (clinical medicine), Professor of Geriatric Medicine in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  • Dan Arking, PhD, Co-Director (genomics), Associate Professor of Genetics in the Institute for Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Interactions built into the RC-2 between geneticists, biostatisticians, genetic epidemiologists and geriatricians have facilitated greatly improved access to the latest and most efficient genotyping technology, and to an analytical infrastructure that can be utilized to understand the role of the frailty syndrome in disease presentation and outcomes.

In addition, RC-2 leaders provide junior investigators and others interested in frailty and aging-related conditions with study design expertise and facilitate access to large populations of older adults with previously measured phenotypic data relevant to frailty.

This helps to facilitate the identification of the genetic causes or risk factors underlying frailty and will directly lead to improved clinical research and treatments, the aims of which include the prevention and amelioration of the premature onset and progression of frailty associated with aging.