UT Health San Antonio Gets $38M for Longevity Research
The Barshop Institute at UT Health San Antonio has secured up to $38 million in funding from ARPA-H. The grant will support research into interventions aimed at reversing or slowing age-related functional decline, signaling major government investment in the longevity space.
This particular grant is part of a larger ARPA-H initiative called PROSPR (PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience), which is dedicating up to $144 million to anti-aging research. The goal of PROSPR is to foster a new "healthspan industry" by identifying therapies that can treat aging as a manageable biological process. The Barshop Institute's specific study, the VITAL-H trial, will investigate repurposing three existing FDA-approved drugs: rapamycin, dapagliflozin, and semaglutide. These medications, used for conditions ranging from organ transplants to diabetes, have shown preclinical promise in affecting pathways related to aging. The trial will focus on healthy adults aged 60-65 to see if these drugs can delay functional decline. This research is significant because it shifts the focus from treating age-related diseases after they appear to proactively preventing or delaying their onset. The VITAL-H trial will utilize wearable technologies to monitor participants, allowing for real-time data collection on mobility and cognition. This approach aims to establish a scalable framework for future preventative interventions. The Barshop Institute is a major player in aging research, holding five peer-reviewed designations from the National Institute on Aging and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It is one of only a handful of NIA-funded Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, a network designed to accelerate discoveries in the fundamental processes of aging. The selection of a South Texas cohort is strategic, as its demographic makeup is similar to the projected future U.S. population, enhancing the national relevance of the study's findings. The project also involves a network of regional partners, including the South Texas Veterans Health Care System and the Texas Diabetes Institute, to broaden its reach and impact. ARPA-H, modeled after the defense research agency DARPA, aims to fund high-risk, high-reward biomedical and health breakthroughs that can't be achieved through traditional research models. Its program managers, often from academia or industry, have the autonomy to drive ambitious projects with the goal of delivering solutions in a few years.
