• The Stein Institute for Research on Aging and the Center for Healthy Aging  Pilot Grant Program

• New call for pilots will be announced spring 2025

The Stein Institute for Research on Aging and the Center for Healthy Aging and the Stein Institute for Research on Aging (SIRA/CHA) 2024-25 pilot grant program solicits proposals for innovative research projects. We are an integrated, multi-disciplinary, cross-campus group that aims to advance and promote health and well-being in the field of healthy aging through research, education, and community outreach. The purpose of the pilot funding is to foster early-stage interdisciplinary research focused on the study and promotion of healthy aging. These awards are designed to help investigators generate pilot and feasibility data to support extramural grant applications.

We also encourage applicants to utilize resources that SIRA/CHA has to offer, including:

• Existing data from our longitudinal life-span aging cohort, the Successful Aging Evaluation Study (SAGE). The SAGE study is a prospective cohort study of 1,800 randomly selected, demographically representative of San Diego, community-dwelling individuals age 20 to over 100 years.   The specific assessments and the years that the assessment were collected can be found here.
• A novel, first of its kind “living lab” in the Belmont Senior Living community on Nobel Drive, just a few miles from the La Jolla campus. This lab is embedded in the senior living community on the 6^th floor in a studio apartment and provides researchers with an opportunity to collaborate with residents and conduct novel research on-site. This could include using the space to conduct research related to sensors, testing innovative technology, conducting physical assessments, utilizing it as a meeting space for participant interviews, etc. Proposals with plans to utilize the living lab space will be considered.
• The UCSD Geroscience lab provides support for aging biomarkers research, including biospecimen collection and processing. The Geroscience lab has a particular focus on mitochondrial bioenergetics but can also facilitate research investigating other biological hallmarks of aging.