Optimizing Resilience
In 2021, the National Institute on Aging awarded AGS more than $173,000 in funding over five years that will support three conferences focused on resilience.
About the Conference
Optimizing Resilience took place from March 3-4, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, MD. The goal of the conference was to focus on how to optimize, maximize, and enhance resilience in older individuals. Some of the key focus areas included defining outcomes to optimize resilience, identifying lowest hanging fruit, and the role of multimodal interventions.
Presentations
Overview of First and Second Resilience Conferences
- Peter Abadir, MD and Cathleen Colon-Emeric, MD, MHS
Topic 1: Biomarkers that are Responsive to Resilience Intervention and How to Track Them
- Duygu Ucar, PhD – Heterogeneity in Human Immune Aging and Vaccine Responses
- Miles Berger, MD, PhD – MARBLE Trial: Insights into the Molecular Effects of Peripheral Surgical Stress on the Aging Brain
- Anthony Molina, PhD – Progress Towards Identifying Drivers and Markers of Universal Resilience
- Claire Gustafson, PhD – Using Multi-omic Profiling to Unravel Human Immunity Across Age
Topic 2: Choosing Multi-Component Interventions
- Bill Kraus, MD – Regular Aerobic Exercise as a Physical Resilience Promoting Intervention
- John Newman, MD, PhD – Multicomponent Interventions in a Geroscience Context
- Paul Wischmeyer, MD – Personalized Exercise, Nutrition, and Anabolic Optimization to Enhance Resilience in Surgical and Illness Recovery
- James Kirkland, MD, PhD – Cellular Senescence and Resilience: Potential Roles of Senolytics, Senosensitizers, and Checkpoint Inhibitors
Topic 3: Issues in Designing Resilience Clinical Trials
- Joan Mannick, MD - Lessons learned from targeting immune resilience with mTOR inhibitors
- Karen Bandeen-Roche, PhD - Designs to Address the Multifaceted Targets of Interventions to Promote Resilience in Older Adults
- Ravi Varadhan, MD, PhD - A Novel Trial Design for Studying Resilience to Clinical Stressors
- Shalender Bhasin, MD - Targeting Muscle to Improve Resilience and Challenges in Designing Clinical Trials for FDA Approval