Significant investment in the training of researchers specializing in healthy ageing

A Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions PhD Network with a budget of £3.8m to train 17 early career researchers has been awarded UNION (UnderstandiNg fraIlty towards a future of healthy ageing). UNION is a joint multi-partner doctoral research training network that aims to advance the current understanding of frailty and provide innovative solutions on how healthy aging can be achieved.

UNION brings together world leaders in frailty, aging biology and medicine, inflammation, immunosenescence, immunometabolism and stem cell biology with state-of-the-art technological excellence from across Europe and beyond.

Professor Claudio Mauro, from the Institute of Inflammation and Aging at the University of Birmingham, will lead UNION together with Professor Massimiliano Ruscica from the Universita’ Statale di Milano. The paper brings together numerous experts from the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, including Professor Simon Jones, Dr Niharika Duggal, Professor Joao Pedro Meghalaes, Dr Thomas Jackson and Emeritus Professor Janet Lord, as well as from University College London (Mauri), Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Formentini and Mittelbrunn), Universita’ Statale di Milano (Ruscica), Istituto San Raffaele di Milano (Di Micco and Iannacone), Universita’ del Salento (Maffia), University of Berlin (Simon), University of Cologne (Frezza and Polidori ) and Karolinska (Vetrano) in Europe, Rochester in the US and Sidney in Australia. It also involves many non-academic beneficiaries, including learned societies, scientific journals, start-ups and pharma.

On average, older adults spend the last 15-20 years of their lives in poor health. Frailty is a major component of health in old age and refers to increased vulnerability to stressors such as falls, surgery or infections. Understanding the transition from robust health to frailty is vital as it is a critical factor in loss of independence and therefore places increased pressure on health and social care.

As with all Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Networks, UNION’s objective is to implement PhD programs through partnerships of organizations from different sectors in Europe and not only to train highly qualified PhD students, stimulate their creativity, enhance their innovation capabilities and increase their employability. long-term.