Institute on Aging history

1987 The first annual Florence S. Mahoney Lecture on Aging is held.

November 4, 1988 P.L. 100-607 establishes the Geriatric Research and Training Centers (GRTC).

In 1989, Professor William Ershler from the Department of Medicine became Director of the Institute.

In 1990, Mount Zion and UCSF solidified nearly 60 years of professional cooperation by merging.

1992 The Health and Retirement Study, the leading source of combined data on health and financial circumstances of Americans over age 50 and a valuable resource to follow and predict trends and help inform policies for an aging America, is established.

1994 Nine demography of aging centers are funded to provide research on health, economics, and aging to make more effective use of data from several national surveys of health, retirement, and long-term care.

1995 Three Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in Basic Biology of Aging are established to further the study of the basic processes of aging.

1996 NIA introduces its Exercise: A Guide from the National Institute on Aging, providing encouragement and evidence-based guidance for older adults to engage in exercise.

1999 As part of NIA's 25th anniversary celebration, a strategic plan is formulated and made available for public comment.

2002 NIA begins to offer a selection of its award-winning health communications materials in Spanish.

2005 NIA’s Alzheimer’s Disease Preclinical Drug Development program is established.

2008 A Biology of Aging Summit is convened to review NIA’s research portfolio, identify areas of opportunity, and facilitate the formulation of cohesive and comprehensive plans for the future.

Demographic projections show that the United States population will begin to age rapidly after 2011, the year the first baby boomers turn sixty-five.

2015 On February 9–10, NIA convenes the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Summit 2015: Path to Treatment and Prevention to develop recommendations that provide a framework for a new Alzheimer’s disease research agenda.