Research Resources

The AgingResearchBiobank is a central biorepository to provide a state-of-the-art inventory system for the storage and distribution of these collections to the broader scientific community.

The AgingResearchBiobank has two components:

• Biologic Specimens (Biorepository) – Using best practices, this component receives, stores, maintains, and distributes biospecimens from different study collections to qualified investigators.
• Data Repository – Serving as the data coordinating center for the Biobank, the Data Repository receives, archives, maintains, and distributes databases from different study collections. It also analyzes stored data in response to inquiries, assists ongoing studies in preparing data for eventual archiving, assists in the selection of appropriate biospecimens for proposed secondary research, and coordinates cross-referencing between the two components of the Biobank.

NIA supports a multi-institutional study investigating pharmacological interventions that might extend lifespan or healthspan using diverse species and strains of Caenorhabditis. This approach leverages the genetic diversity within this genus to examine robustness of interventions. The CITP allows investigators to submit proposals for interventions to be tested for their ability to decelerate aging and extend lifespan. Please visit the CITP web page.

To facilitate aging research on cells in culture, the NIA provides support for the NIA Aging Cell Repository, located at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden, NJ. Included are skin fibroblast cultures from individuals with premature aging syndromes, including Werner and Hutchinson-Guilford (progeria), cultures from clinically documented and at-risk individuals from families exhibiting familial Alzheimer's disease, differentiated cell lines, and cell lines from animals. The repository also has DNA from many of the cell lines, available individually or in panels such as the Primate DNA panel, Aging Syndrome DNA panel, Characterized Alzheimer's disease mutation DNA panel, Early and Late Onset Alzheimer's disease DNA panels, and Aged Sib Pairs DNA panel.

This webpage describes a network of NIA grantees willing to share resources that support comparative biology of aging studies.

NIA supports studies of human aging that have collections of biospecimens available for sharing. The Virtual Repository is a website that provides a central portal to these studies, with introductory information on participating studies.

The NIA sponsors the Investigational New Drug (IND) Toxicology program to identify compounds for use in symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other aging-related diseases. The program provides toxicology services to academic and small business investigators who believe they have promising compounds for the treatment or prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, but lack the resources to perform the required toxicology studies. NIA will give investigators access to toxicological evaluations required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as part of requests for IND designations for clinical studies. NIA hopes this preclinical drug-development program will expand the potential range of drug therapies for Alzheimer’s and other aging-related diseases by making these resources available to a larger and more diverse group of investigators.

SRI International provides services for this program in four general categories:

1. analytical chemistry,
2. pharmacokinetics and bioavailability,
3. preliminary toxicity screens, and
4. IND-directed toxicology studies, including safety pharmacology.

NIA supports a multi-institutional study investigating diets and dietary supplements purported to extend lifespan and delay disease and dysfunction. ITP allows investigators to submit proposals for interventions to be tested for their ability to decelerate aging and extend lifespan in mice.

National Centralized Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (NCRAD). This NIH-funded repository provides resources that help researchers identify the genes that contribute to Alzheimer’s and related dementias. NCRAD collects and maintains biological specimens and associated data on study volunteers from a variety of sources, such as participants enrolled at the ADRCs, as well as those in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) study, the ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (ALLFTD) study, and other Alzheimer’s and related dementias studies. Biological samples banked at NCRAD include but are not limited to DNA, plasma, serum, RNA, CSF, cell lines (PBMCs, iPSCs, LCLs, etc.), and brain tissue. Since it was funded over 30 years ago, NCRAD has received requests for more than 375,000 biological samples and has sent samples to more than 250 approved investigators and research centers across the world.

NIAGADS organizes, stores, and shares genetic, genomic, and phenotypic data, including clinical and neuropathology data, from NIH-funded genetic studies in a secure environment. NIAGADS currently hosts 76 high-quality human genetics datasets in addition to Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP) data, corresponding to 55,241 participants, and has a genomics database for cross-referencing and visualizing known genomic variants and annotations with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) genetic analysis findings.

The ADSP provides genetic data from large numbers of genetically informative, multi-ethnic, phenotypically well-characterized families having multiple individuals affected with AD, and includes Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD) cases and controls. NIAGADS is the ADSP Data Coordinating Center that supports ADSP data production, management, and sharing. A partial list of NIAGADS’s many responsibilities includes scheduling, preparing, and maintaining public data releases. NIAGADS also maintains the ADSP website and facilitates community access to ADSP data.

NIAGADS was charged with developing a fully featured data-sharing service for ADSP using cloud technology that was compliant with both Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA). The NIAGADS Data Sharing Service (DSS) was launched in July 2018 and facilitates the deposition and sharing of genomic data from the ADSP and other NIA-funded AD/ADRD genomic studies with approved users in the research community. NIAGADS provides qualified investigators with several different types of data from genetic/genomic studies, including high-density genotyping and sequencing data, extensive phenotype data, and summary statistics from published genetic studies.

The DSS currently hosts 16,905 whole genomes and 20,503 whole exomes from the ADSP. Later in 2022 there will be a total of ~37,000 ADSP whole genomes available through NIAGADS DSS.

NIA maintains approximately 300 nonhuman primates (Macaca mulatta) at three regional primate centers for conducting research on aging for NIA funded scientists. These animals range in age from 18 to 35 years. Please contact Dr. Manuel Moro for additional information.

The Nonhuman Primate Tissue Bank provides a source of archived tissue from aged nonhuman primates, primarily rhesus monkeys. The tissue is donated by primate centers and universities with primate colonies and is available as frozen tissue chunks, slides of fixed tissue sections, and OTC-embedded frozen tissues.

The NIA supports the Primate Aging Database (PAD), a searchable database that contains basic health and husbandry data from primates across the lifespan and from numerous research institutions. PAD, hosted by the Wisconsin National Primate Center, is a password-secured site. For information, go to https://primatedatabase.org.