CUIMC Healthy Aging Initiative

Vision Statement: Our common goal is to extend healthspan to the oldest ages and create healthy longevity for all. To achieve this goal, we will forge a comprehensive understanding of healthy aging through new discoveries and their integration into universal prevention and care. This will unleash the potential of our longer lives for individuals and society.

The CUIMC Healthy Aging Initiative (CHAI) was launched in 2023 and located within the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center. The Initiative was established with the following goals.

1. Create a vision for next generation science to propel developing healthy longevity for all— spanning basic molecular, cellular, and organismal, clinical, mental health, social sciences, and public health approaches to population health
2. Identify initiatives to catapult CUIMC’s leadership on science and solutions that meet health needs and optimize the opportunities of longevity
3. Identify CUIMC’s strengths and gaps and our collective transformative goals that will strengthen basic science, clinical medicine, social science, and population health science, and position CUIMC as a transformative leader on aging, longevity and health
4. Create a basis for synergies among all these disciplines towards transformative goals
5. Propel collaboration among the medical center’s four schools and the Irving Institute towards a shared and highly aspirational vision 

CUIMC Healthy Aging Pilot Grants: Deadline to Submit is July 31, 2024 

The goal of this pilot funding program is to foster interdisciplinary innovation in the science of healthy longevity by CUIMC researchers. More specifically, the funds are intended to help scientists overcome barriers and gaps to launching programs of research on healthy longevity by catalyzing the creation of new teams; the aim is to encourage not only existing aging researchers to work on this mission, but also to attract established investigators to focus for the first time on healthy longevity. The long-term goal is to advance our understanding of the drivers of healthy aging and potential interventions to amplify it. Healthy longevity is defined as added years of life lived free of disability. (A clarification on the RFP: as an addendum to the budgetary guidelines therein, please note that junior faculty or equivalent may put in for modest percentage of effort but that senior faculty/PI effort lines are discouraged).

For the RFP, please download: [PDF] or [Word].

CHAI Healthspan Extension Summit Unites Medical Campus

By 2050, the number of people aged 80 years or older is expected to triple. Society now faces the challenge of optimizing our longer lives by extending our “healthspan”—defined as years of life lived free of disease and disability. To address this challenge, on April 19, 2024, CHAI's Healthspan Extension Summit brought together researchers from across the medical center to present findings in basic science, clinical medicine, and public health, and to discuss how these fields can ensure healthier long lives. It drew over 300 members of the research community to the Vagelos Education Center for an afternoon symposium which included three scientific sessions and a reception where 70 researchers presented posters. Read more.

Watch a video of the event.

Read the 2023 Healthy Aging Initiative preliminary report.

CHAI Steering Committee Members

Linda P. Fried MD, MPH
CHAI Steering Committee Chair
Dean and DeLamar Professor of Public Health
Mailman School of Public Health
Director, Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center
Senior Vice President, Columbia University Medical Center
Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia Aging Center
Department: Epidemiology

Allison E. Aiello, PhD
James S. Jackson Healthy Longevity Professor in Epidemiology
Mailman School of Public Health
Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center
Department: Epidemiology

Gregory L. Alexander, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, FIAHSI
Helen Young CUPHSONAA Professor of Nursing
School of Nursing
Department: Nursing Scholarship & Research

Daniel W. Belsky, PhD
Associate Professor of Epidemiology
Mailman School of Public Health
Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center
Department: Epidemiology

Alan A. Cohen, PhD
Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
Mailman School of Public Health
Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center
Department: Environmental Health Sciences

Caitlin M. Hawke
Associate Director, Programming
Senior Science and Strategy Officer
Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center

Gérard  Karsenty, MD, PhD
Paul A. Marks M.D., Professor
Chair of the Department of Genetics and Development
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Department: Genetics and Development

Ian M. Kronish, MD, MPH
Associate Director, Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health
Florence Irving Associate Professor of Medicine
Co-Director, ColumbiaDoctors Hypertension Center
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health
Department: Medicine

Carol Kunzel, PhD
Professor of Foundational Sciences (in Dental Medicine)
Professor of Sociomedical Sciences
College of Dental Medicine
Department: Section of Oral, Diagnostic, and Rehabilitation Sciences

José A. Luchsinger, MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Vice Chair for Clinical and Epidemiological Research
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Department: General Internal Medicine

Jennifer J. Manly, PhD
Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain
Department: Neurology

Emmanuelle Passegué, PhD
Director, Columbia Stem Cell Initiative
Alumni Professor of Genetics and Development (in Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine)
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Department: Genetics and Development

Muredach P. Reilly, MBBCh, MSCE
Director, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
Department: Medicine

Christiane Reitz MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain
Department: Neurology

Scott A. Small, MD
Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology
Director, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center
Departments: Neurology, Psychiatry, Radiology

Yousin Suh, PhD
Charles and Marie Robertson Professor of Reproductive Sciences in Obstetrics and Gynecology
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Departments: Obstetrics and Gynecology, Genetics and Development