British Society for Research on Ageing

The Society grew out of the "Club for Ageing" founded by Vladimir Korenchevsky in the 1940's. This organisation was the first scientific body to be concerned specifically with gerontology as a scientific discipline and was forerunner of the many national gerontological societies now established throughout the world.

In its early days the Society was the chief organiser of International Gerontology. The general aim of the Society is to foster an experimental approach to problems of ageing in the biological and medical sciences and to provide a forum for the discussion of current ideas in these two areas. The Society is growing rapidly. In the past, members have been drawn largely from clinical and biomedical fields, but an increasing proportion of the new members are involved in comparative studies on animals.

The current membership reflects the growing emphasis on problems in experimental psychology, physiology, cell and molecular biology, evolution and genetics. In this respect, the Society offers a unique opportunity for the exchange of ideas between research workers with widely different scientific backgrounds, but who are, nevertheless, linked through a common interest in the temporal organization of life. In these days of extreme specialization gerontology provides a much needed base for interdisciplinary studies.

The Society encourages a broad view of ageing that includes all those aspects of developmental biology which may have a bearing on terminal processes. The research conducted by our members is vital to understanding the causes of normal human ageing, with the long term aim of increasing the quality of later life. Ageing appears in part to be a consequence of natural processes that protect us from developing cancer. Trying to stop ageing per se is probably not a viable strategy in terms of increasing human health and well-being. However, the frailty and morbidity of ageing may not be a necessary part of getting old, and research by members of the society (and our partner organizations in the BCA) has already shed light on issues such as muscle weakness, falls, response to flu vaccines and incontinence, which have direct relevance to the health of older people, and potential application in the clinic. Other types of research focus on the molecular mechanisms that lead to cellular ageing. An understanding of these molecular processes has already led to clinical trials in the States for treatment of the devastating childhood-onset progeria (premature ageing); we hope that such studies will also shed light on aspects of normal ageing that may be amenable to clinical intervention.

The Society is run by an elected Executive Committee which, in recent years, has been drawn from a number of different research areas including clinical medicine, biochemistry, neuroscience, cell and evolutionary biology. The Society is Registered as a Charity with the Charity Commission (No. 279922) of the UK.

New members 

The Society welcomes new members. We hope to be able to arrange for payment via PayPal in the near future, however in the mean time please use the membership application form that can be downloaded below. You can register to the use the website, however only once your application has been processed and payment received will you be given full access to all the content.