Studying Aging, And Fearing Budget Cuts.

Dr. Richard J. Hodes presides over the nation's prime source of grants for studies of aging at a worrisome time for researchers. Just when the cohort of elderly Americans is surging, many scientists fear that government budget cuts may hamper a broad array of research efforts on Alzheimer's and other diseases of aging -- not to mention the eye-catching recent progress on reversing age-related decline in genetically altered mice. Dr. Hodes, 67, has been the director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health for 17 years. Although its budget has grown to $1.1 billion on his watch, his agency would get only $20 million more under President Obama's 2012 budget proposal. (Other agencies within the N.I.H. spend about $2 billion combined on age-related research.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]