Friends of the NIA (FoNIA)
Biomedical research has produced a wealth of knowledge and technologies that are increasingly vital to the United States as the nation undergoes rapid and profound increases in numbers of older Americans. Life-saving and life-enhancing technologies from research in recent years run the gamut from clot-busting drugs and vascular stents to prevent heart attacks, to medical imaging to aid diagnosis and speed treatment of Alzheimer’s patients, to new and vastly more effective treatments for osteoporosis, arthritis and diabetes. Even the simple and inexpensive intervention of a daily low-dose aspirin which is helping to prevent heart diseases in millions of Americans was the result of years of research, extensive clinical trials and health services studies.
The National Institute on Aging (NIA), created by Congress in 1975 as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), increasingly is an agency that is gathering answers for tens of millions of Americans who need and deserve to experience healthy aging.
The NIA conducts and funds frontline biogerontology, clinical medicine, behavioral, and social science research in aging with the goal of preventing, postponing or otherwise ameliorating diseases and other health challenges common to older people. The NIA seeks from basic and applied research the means to achieve a healthier old age for more people, to better understand rising risk factors of age-related disease and disability and to develop strategies to reduce those risks.
The Friends of the NIA is a broad coalition of organizations committed to the advancement of health sciences research that could affect millions of older Americans. FoNIA supports the research and training missions of the National Institute on Aging and serves as a bridge between the NIA and supportive organizations and groups in order to promote and advocate for the NIA and its initiatives as public policies in health and research take shape. By bringing together like-minded organizations to support the federal government’s leading aging research institute, FoNIA addresses current and future challenges in advancing public awareness and acceptance of research goals.
For more information, or to join the FoNIA, please contact Michael Cangelosi at the Alliance for Aging Research at 202-293-2856 or email mcangelosi@agingresearch.org.
FoNIA Executive Committee:
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FoNIA Member Organizations:
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