As people live longer than ever before but with many suffering from chronic illness and the Corona pandemic threatening the survival of the unvaccinated, aging is a subject that requires ongoing research.
A newly announced collaboration between Israel and the United Kingdom will work towards enhancing research on aging and promoting common projects related to aging. As part of this collaboration, Tel Aviv University (TAU) held last week a hybrid conference on the multidisciplinary aspects of aging research, among them molecular aging, social aging, age-dependent diseases and interventions, life quality, and more.
Among the participants of the conference were British Ambassador to Israel Neil Wigan; the chairman of the British Council, Stevie Spring; and the Lord Robert Winston of Hammersmith, along with the leading researchers from Israeli and British universities.
The conference constitutes a fruitful joint initiative of the Britain-Israel Research and Academic Exchange (BIRAX) partnership, Tel Aviv University, the British Council in Israel, and the UK Embassy. It was the 5th BIRAX conference since its launch 10 years ago.
As part of the conference, a new £1.6 million (NIS 7 million) grant program was launched for funding collaborations between Israeli and British researchers in the field of aging research. The call for proposals is now open.
Prof. Karen Avraham, vice dean for pre-clinical affairs of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the chairman of the conference from TAU, said: “I am happy and excited for the unique opportunity given to us, leading researchers from Israel and the UK, to share our knowledge arm in arm. The pandemic has made it clear how old age can be precarious and forlorn, and I hope that gerontological and geriatric topics will gain more public awareness.”
She added that “in a world in which our lifespan is getting longer and longer, we shall make sure that life quality will be conserved also in old age, and we are here to discuss that. Israel and the UK, while being progressive Western countries, are sharing knowledge in many fields, and gerontology is one of the most important among them. The conference today is the harbinger of collaboration between Israel and other progressive western countries around these topics, and I believe that we will see more such conferences in the future.”
Wigan commented that “scientific collaboration between the UK and Israel is one of our most important fields, and we are working to expand it dramatically in the future. It’s always exciting to see the ground-breaking research proposals coming out of BIRAX – in ageing research and other academic areas – that have real potential to impact the future of us all.”
Spring concluded that “over the decade of its existence, BIRAX has promoted UK-Israel scientific collaboration allowing both countries to complement each other’s strengths in research, science, and medicine. The British Council is proud to be enabling both countries to join forces on one of the world’s great challenges – healthy aging.”
