Leadership and Administrative Core

This competing continuation of The Boston Older Americans Independence Center (Boston OAIC) builds upon
a highly productive research network of resources and extant collaborations among leading aging researchers
from academic medical centers associated with Harvard, Tufts and Boston universities to foster translational
research in function promoting therapies (FPTs) and reduce the burden of disabling functional limitations in
older adults.. During this past cycle, with the inclusion of Dr. Lipsitz as Associate Director and REC Director,
Dr. Marcantonio and Wagers as REC Associate Directors, and Dr. Kiel as PESC Co-Leader, the Boston OAIC
is now well integrated with the the Harvard Geriatrics and Gerontology research community and programs,
including its T32 training grant, Harvard Clinical Translational Science Institute, the Roybal Center, The New
England Geriatrics Research Clinical Education Center, and the Glenn Foundation Center for Biology of Aging.
The LAC is responsible for stimulating, sustaining, evaluating, and reporting OAIC’s progress towards its goals
and enabling integration of OAIC activities. In addition to providing administrative support, the LAC coordinates
the activities of Boston OAIC’s investigators, resource cores, its conferences, and career development
activities. The LAC leadership scouts the participating institutions for the most promising early career scientists
for its REC program, and emerging science projects for PESC or developmental project support. The LAC
issues requests for application for its PES, REC, and developmental projects and oversees the review of
applications - a first stage internal peer review followed by review and approval by the external advisory board.
The LAC evaluates the operations of its cores and maintains accountability of its participating projects,
members and cores. The LAC directs the Boston OAIC through ongoing interaction with the external and
internal advisory boards, and NIA staff, and monitors the activities and progress of OAIC’s projects.
The LAC maintains integration across the various components of OAIC through its PROMOTE Program by
organizing monthly conferences, an annual retreat, and maintaining a website and a newsletter. The OAIC
leaders serve as science concierges to facilitate collaborations among scientists from various institutions and
access to core resources. The LAC provide administrative support for REC, PESC, and developmental project
awardees. LAC facilitates commercialization of discoveries and innovations through its LINK program.
The LAC leadership interacts with investigators at other OAICs to establish collaborations, a task in which it
has had substantial success during the past 5 years (Progress Report). It oversees the dissemination of
information about the OAIC among stakeholders, and maintains community outreach. Thus the LAC
stimulates, sustains, integrates, and evaluates the activities of the OAIC, and enables the integration of OAIC
activities to facilitate the accomplishment of its goal of promoting translational research in FPTs.

Grant Number: 5P30AG031679-15
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: SHALENDER BHASIN