Professor of medicine honored for aging research

The Gerontological Society of America has awarded UW Medical School’s professor of medicine Richard Weindruch its 1998 Kleemeier Award for outstanding research in aging.

Weindruch is also co-director of the aging-research group at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, associate director for biomedical research at the UW–Madison Center on Aging, and a scientist at the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at the William S. Middleton Veterans Administration Hospital.

The Robert W. Kleemeier Award is given annually to a member of the Gerontological Society of America to recognize outstanding research in the field of gerontology. Created in 1965, the award commemorates the former president of the society who made exemplary contributions to the quality of life through research in aging.

An expert on dietary restriction and its effect on aging, Weindruch will present the Kleemeier Award Lecture at the society’s annual scientific meeting next spring. The socitey is the largest professional organization in the United States focused on aging.

Weindruch was the first to show that starting rodents on a controlled diet even as late as midlife produced longer-lived, healthier animals. He is co-author of the first text on dietary restriction, an in-depth review article in Scientific American and several other reports in prestigious journals.

He directs a research and training program totalling $1.3 million per year. His studies are adding to a growing body of evidence supporting significant age-retarding effects of a calorie-restricted yet nutritious diet. The UW scientist theorizes that dietary restriction may influence cellular energy centers called mitochondria by reducing the number of harmful free radicals produced there.

Weindruch also leads a long-term study aimed at learning if a diet that is 30 percent lower in calories than normal can retard aging in adult rhesus monkeys in a manner similar to what’s been observed in mice and rats. He was recently appointed chairperson of the National Institutes of Health’s Geriatrics and Rehabilitative Medicine Study Section.