Original story: UT Health San Antonio Newsroom
Contact: Claire Kowalick, kowalick@uthscsa.edu
SAN ANTONIO (July 22, 2025) — Aging affects all living creatures and is the greatest factor in numerous diseases. The greatest health care burdens are borne by diseases in older patients — a population expected to nearly double by 2050, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections.
Over the past 30 years, scientists at The University of Texas Health Science at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging have been dedicated to the discovery and testing of novel pathways that have the potential to extend life and promote healthy aging. Recently, the center’s directors announced that they are approved for continued National Institute on Aging funding for the next five years.
This center at UT Health San Antonio has provided core services for aging research since 1995, with the goal of leveraging institutional resources to promote aging research and helping other scientists with aging-related projects and training. The eight Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence around the United States each have unique research, development and service cores that provide oversight, assistance in research endeavors and training opportunities for scientists new to the field.
The UT Health San Antonio center includes six cores:
- An Administrative and Program Enrichment core that enhances the research environment along with providing services and programs across the country.
- An Aging Animal and Functional Assessment core where scientists have access to aged animal models as well as novel aging models developed here that might not be available anywhere else.
- A GeroMetabolism core where they investigate changes in lifetime metabolism and metabolic drivers of aging, including lipidomics and metabolomics cores.
- A Pathology core which looks at pathological implications of aging, which diseases are connected to aging and how they develop.
- A Pharmacology and Drug Design core, which seeks to discover interventions for aging focused on drugs and compounds.
- A Research Development core that helps expand research in the aging field at UT Health San Antonio and at other institutions in the San Antonio area. This core also helps develop scientists who are new to the aging research field.
Story continues:
Thirty years of excellence: San Antonio Nathan Shock Center a global leader in aging research