Germany's Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science has decided in principle to create a new institute focused on the biology of aging, an area some in Germany consider understudied.

The biology of aging is “an upcoming and rapidly expanding area of research that is currently not being adequately covered at German universities or private research institutes,” said Ulrich Hartl of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, a member of an advisory committee formed last year to study the issue.

“We need more research is this area,” Hartl told The Scientist. The planned institute would be the first of its kind in Europe, he said.

In the United States, the Buck Institute in the San Francisco area is similar to what Max Planck wants to create, Hartl said. He noted that Judith Campisi of the Buck Institute served on the Max Planck advisory committee that recommended creation of...

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