by Buck Institute
April 25, 2023 . News
Buck launches the first-ever online course on the biology of aging!
Education has always been part of the Buck’s mission; the public has always been included in the Institute’s community seminars and tours. Now the Buck has taken its educational efforts to a whole new level, by making its expertise available to anyone with an internet connection and an interest in life-long learning. The Buck Academy’s free online course is the first-ever to focus on the biology of aging.
“We are very proud to offer this unique resource to the large and growing community of adults who want to be proactive in understanding the basic biology of aging in order to give themselves a leg up when it comes to living better longer,” says Buck President and CEO Eric Verdin, MD. “This is a course for non-scientists to get an inside view of how research on aging can transform our health.”
“This is a course for non-scientists to get an inside view of how research on aging can transform our health.”
Verdin is one of five Buck faculty who appear in video segments in the course.
The course covers the Geroscience Hypothesis (aging as the major risk factor for chronic disease), the biology of aging, information on the molecular underpinnings of common age-related conditions (heart disease, cancer, neurodegeneration and diabetes) along with updates on recent discoveries in our labs and a primer for what people can do to promote healthy aging now.
Buck faculty Judy Campisi, Gordon Lithgow, Julie Andersen and John Newman contributed to the course, providing insights into the hallmarks of aging, neurodegenerative diseases, and efforts to move discoveries into the clinic, among others. The course also features animations and tips on how to evaluate health-related news stories.
The course is made possible by a grant from the Navigage Foundation and we are thrilled that reviews from early users have been terrific: “Just completed your free course for non-scientists on Gero Science. Enjoyed and learned a lot!”; “The course is easy to navigate. I would, and do, recommend the course to friends”; “Thanks so much for making this information available. I loved the course!”
Science is showing that while chronological aging is inevitable, biological aging is malleable. There's a part of it that you can fight, and we are getting closer and closer to winning that fight.
Eric Verdin, MD, Buck Institute President and CEO