New Aging Research Center

The National Institutes of Health and UW–Madison are investing $6.3 million in the center to foster cross-campus collaboration on the biology of aging. Pexels

A new research center at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health will focus on understanding how metabolic changes associated with aging influence health and cause disease.

The National Institute on Aging has recognized the school’s strength in aging research through a competitive grant awarded for the Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging.

Researchers will study how aging broadly affects biochemical reactions that provide energy to cells, and how metabolic dysfunction contributes to conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s disease. Aging is a significant risk factor for all of these chronic ailments.

The National Institutes of Health and UW–Madison are investing $6.3 million in the center to foster cross-campus collaboration on the biology of aging. Wisconsin joins seven other Nathan Shock Centers.

Rozalyn Anderson, professor of medicine, will lead the center, with codirectors John Denu ’88, professor of biomolecular chemistry, and Dudley Lamming, professor of medicine.

The center will bring together more than 40 researchers from across the UW–Madison campus. “It is a virtual center spread across the entire campus, a gathering of minds rather than a building of rooms,” says Anderson. “We’re looking forward to being the hub that attracts more people into aging research.”

Published in the Summer 2026 issue