# Biological Aging Across the Life Course: Harmonizing Cohort Biospecimen Archives

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2021 · $609,543

## Abstract

As the US rapidly transitions into an aging society, aging-associated diseases are increasing in both
prevalence and cost. Compounding this concern is evidence that cohorts entering adulthood and midlife today
are less healthy than preceding generations were at those ages. The faster rate of aging among recent cohorts
is cause for concern, and necessitates earlier detection of aging-associated diseases, often well before midlife.
Determining the individual physiological changes linked to aging and health outcomes provides important
information about influences on the aging process, as well as identifying potential areas for intervention to
increase healthy lifespan and longevity. A variety of approaches to measuring physiological aging using sets of
biomarkers have been suggested in recent years—but currently little is known about how they correlate with
each other, how those relationships change over the life course, and to what degree the biomarkers of aging
are generalizable to population subgroups (by sex, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES)). Early life
social adversities show strong and lasting associations with aging and aging-related diseases. However, a key
unanswered question is the degree to which biomarkers of aging across the life course link early life context to
later life health. To understand how biomarkers of aging correlate across the life course and link to SES and
social context we draw upon survey and biorepository data and samples from three large nationally
representative panel studies: the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; representative of US population over age
50; biomarker data for ages 51-110), the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add
Health; representative of adolescents in grades 7-12 in 1994; biomarker data ages 24-42) and the Fragile
Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW; representative of birth in large US Cities 1998-2000; biomarker
data ages 9-24). The harmonization of biomarkers and survey data across these three panel studies provides
an unprecedented opportunity to discover how biomarkers of aging correlate over the life course and how they
correlate with SES and other social contextual factors associated with aging. Aim 1 will produce harmonized
data and measures for the research community from three national panel studies with special focus on
biomarkers: aging blood-based biomarkers (IL-6, TNFa, CRP, GDF15, IGF-1, Cystatin C, NT-proBNP, and
hbA1c), DNA methylation (Illumina EPIC chip), and gene expression (RNA Seq). Aim 2 will examine how the
biomarkers of aging are distributed and correlate with each other over the life course and across several key
demographics. Also, using already generated immune cell methylation (FF at ages 9 and 15) and RNA (AH
age 24-32) we will predict subsequent adult biomarkers of aging. Using the harmonized survey data, Aim 3 will
examine the link between biomarkers of aging and a set of contextual measures of early life and adult health...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10136747
- **Project number:** 1R01AG071071-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Jessica Faul
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $609,543
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-03-15 → 2026-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10136747

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10136747, Biological Aging Across the Life Course: Harmonizing Cohort Biospecimen Archives (1R01AG071071-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10136747. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*