Research Resources

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.

NIA maintains colonies of aged rats and mice for use by the scientific community for research directly related to aging and age-related diseases. The animals are housed behind specific pathogen-free barriers and monitored for genetic purity and health status, and a health report accompanies each shipment of animals. In addition, NIA supports a tissue bank of flash-frozen tissues from mice and rats from the aged rodent colonies and tissue arrays containing punches of multiple ages and multiple tissues per slide. Please note that there are restrictions on eligibility to use the NIA aged rodent colonies.

• Aged Rodent Colonies Handbook
• Aged Rodent Tissue Bank Handbook
• Oldest Ages Available in NIA Aged Rodent Colonies
• Rodent and Tissue Bank Resources Information

The Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) was a multi-center, longitudinal, prospective observational study of knee osteoarthritis (OA). The overall aim of the OAI was to develop a public domain research resource to facilitate the scientific evaluation of biomarkers for osteoarthritis as potential surrogate endpoints for disease onset and progression. The OAI established and maintains a natural history database for osteoarthritis that will include clinical evaluation data, radiological (x-ray and magnetic resonance) images, and a biospecimen repository from 4796 men and women ages 45-79 enrolled between February 2004 and May 2006. Four 3.0 Tesla MRI scanners, one at each clinical center, were dedicated to imaging the knees of OAI participants annually over four years. The seven-year project recruited participants who had, and those who are at high risk for developing, symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. All data and images collected are available to researchers worldwide to help quicken the pace of biomarker identification, scientific investigation and OA drug development. Access to biospecimens will be by application to the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS).

The Rochester Epidemiology Project (REP) is a collaboration of clinics, hospitals, and other medical facilities in Minnesota and Wisconsin and involves community members who have agreed to share their medical records for research. Using medical record information, medical scientists can discover what causes the diseases, how patients respond to medical and surgical therapies, and what will happen to patients in the future. Research studies conducted in the local community may improve the health of people both locally and globally.

Pancreas++ is a novel algorithm that facilitates the fully-automated, non-biased, and highly reproducible investigation of islet area and alpha- and beta-cell quantity, as well as position within the islet for either single or large batches of fluorescent images. The algorithm uses active contour models to quantify images accurately and quickly, resulting in an output of an easy-to-read tabular format. Pancreas++ can distinguish between relevant pixels and noise, process multiple islets within the same image, and function without the aid of user interaction. Read more about Pancreas++. 

Plurigon is a data visualization and classification tool for the integration of high-dimensionality visualization algorithms with a user-friendly, interactive graphical interface. Plurigon processes a series of floating-point numbers into a deformable 3D object with a visible topography using spiral spacing, convex hulls, and laplacian smoothing of polygonal meshes. Plurigon contains an easy-to-use keyboard layout for axial drawing, zooming, rotating, importing, and exporting. Read more about Plurigon and download the tool.

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is the longest running longitudinal household survey in the world. The study began in 1968 with a nationally representative sample of over 18,000 individuals living in 5,000 families in the United States. Information on these individuals and their descendants has been collected continuously, including data covering employment, income, wealth, expenditures, health, marriage, childbearing, child development, philanthropy, education, and numerous other topics. The PSID is directed by faculty at the University of Michigan, and the data are available on this website without cost to researchers and analysts.

The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) is an NIH-funded initiative to develop and validate patient reported outcomes (PROs) for clinical research and practice. P is a set of person-centered measures that evaluates and monitors physical, mental, and social health in adults and children. It can be used with the general population and with individuals living with chronic conditions.

To learn more, visit www.nihpromis.org.

Project Talent is a national longitudinal study that first surveyed America’s high school students in 1960. At the time, it was the largest and most comprehensive study of high school students ever conducted in the United States. Over 440,000 students from 1,353 schools across the country participated in two full days or four half days of testing. The study was developed by the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute, and several other organizations, including the University of Pittsburgh, through a Cooperative Agreement. It was funded by the United States Office of Education. Fifty years later, the American Institutes for Research is planning to follow up with participants from the original 1960 study.

The REACH study was a multisite caregiver intervention study that compared a variety of interventions for dementia caregivers to control conditions. The study was a landmark in its large sample size, use of multiple sites, and inclusion of large numbers of White, Hispanic, and African American caregivers.