Through the generosity of the Starr Foundation, Brown University and Brown University Health are partnering to advance treatment for age-associated diseases and extend healthy lifespan.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - With a $37 million investment from the Starr Foundation, Brown University and Brown University Health will launch a new partnership to accelerate breakthroughs in aging research, clinical trials and patient treatments.
By integrating University research with the health system's clinical trial network, the Starr Healthspan Innovation Alliance aims to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and life-changing treatments for major age-related diseases of the modern era.
The funding will enable Brown University to build on and expand the work of the Center on the Biology of Aging, support groundbreaking laboratory research, and recruit leading researchers in the burgeoning field of geroscience, which is the study of the genetic, molecular and cellular mechanisms of aging. It will also expand clinical trials across Brown University Health, strengthening the ecosystem in which faculty-led research flows from laboratories to hospitals to patients.
"The Starr Foundation's generous investment will enable Brown University and Brown University Health to advance a bold vision for the future of medicine focused on helping people live fuller, healthier lives as they age," Brown University President Christina H. Paxson said. "By uniting world-class science at Brown with clinical care across the Brown University Health system, we can translate cutting-edge research into life-changing treatments for devastating conditions like cancer and dementia."
The alliance builds on an established academic medical ecosystem and longstanding partnerships between Brown's Warren Alpert Medical School and the teaching hospitals within Brown University Health, through which faculty and clinical researchers collaborate. In 2022, an operational enterprise was established to align the research of the University's Division of Biology and Medicine with that of its clinical partners, and in 2024, the two organizations expanded their longtime affiliation to strengthen top-quality patient care, medical education and biomedical research in Rhode Island.
