Universidad Mayor will sponsor the World Congress on Aging that will host Chile.
09-05-2019
09-05-2019
The event will take place between November 18 and 21 in Puerto Varas, and is part of a series of continental meetings on geoscience, a discipline that seeks to intervene to slow down the process of natural deterioration of the human organism.
During November, Chile will host the World Congress “International Perspectives on Gerocieties 2019”, organized by the Center for Gerocience, Mental Health and Metabolism (GERO) and sponsored by the Universidad Mayor.
The activity is part of a series of meetings sponsored by the network of Nathan Shock Center centers of excellence, which have been held in the United States, Australia, Spain, Israel, Singapore and China on this discipline, which seeks to intervene to delay the process of aging.
The event will take place between November 18 and 21 in Puerto Varas (Los Lagos Region) and will convene leading researchers, including Brian Kennedy, from the United States Buck Institute of Aging, known for exploring new drugs and therapies to delay aging; Felipe Sierra, who coined the term "gerociencia"; and James Kirkland, who invented the senolithic, a drug that kills the cells that cause aging. There will also be Latin American scientists from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil.
"The importance of Chile being one of the venues is that it positions GERO as a relevant actor in the concert on aging research, and also provides a platform to highlight the emerging efforts that Latin American countries are making to investigate and understand the singularities of aging in this part of the planet, ”said its director, Christian Gonzalez-Billault.
"The goal is to gather people who are at the forefront and discuss progress in aging," added the director of the Center for Integrative Biology (CIB) of the Universidad Mayor, Dr. Felipe Court, who will be one of the exhibitors, like the academic of the same center, Julio César Cárdenas.
It is that aging is a priority issue, considering that in 2050 one in five people will be 60 years or older. According to gero-science specialists, the idea is to reach that age in a healthy way, reversing the current indicators that have as a common factor old age: 80% of Chileans over 65 have a chronic disease and a third suffer from degenerative disease.
“The challenge we have as a country is great, since this accelerated aging has not gone hand in hand with the generation of public policies that allow us to be prepared for the impact of an aging population,” explains Christian Gonzalez-Billault. And he adds: “Today one of the main objectives is to look for interventions that mitigate the effect of aging on our body, and although there are alternatives that seem promising, and that will be discussed in Congress, it is important to deliver the message that modifying habits and styles of life unhealthy, you can have a profound impact on how we will age. ”
The event is open to all public and offers scholarships for interested students. In addition, on November 21 a satellite day will be held in Santiago where daily aspects such as exercise, diets and the impact of healthy lifestyles will be addressed.
The director of GERO also hopes that this event will serve to generate instances of cooperation with other Latin American countries, and that the center can serve as an inspiration for the creation of aging research institutes or centers in the rest of the continent.
For more information visit the official site: https://gerosciencechile.cl/
