Despite a substantial increase in the flow of financial support for gerontological research during the past several years, ambitious investigators of aging-associated phenomena continue to lament that their field is underfunded.
One such investigator is Denham Harman, a professor, emeritus, at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in Omaha. The 78-year-old Harman for many years has argued that aging research deserves far more attention and financial support than it traditionally has received--especially because the United States population, according to demographic statistics, is rapidly getting older. "We need to spend more money on basic biomedical research on aging to go after its basic causes," he asserts.
Harman acknowledges his gratification at seeing significant funding gestures in the past year alone by such private sources as the Charles A. Dana Foundation in New York and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research in Santa...