WOAI reports that the National Institute on Aging has awarded a $2.5 million grant to the University of Texas Health Science Center. Researchers will be testing drugs and genetic procedures with the aim of slowing the aging process. This is a fairly conservative program in the grand scheme of things, aimed at allowing healthy, active life to continue into the 80s and 90s rather than radically extending life span. It's worth nothing that scientists like Aubrey de Grey advocate work to begin immediately on reversing the effects of aging. It is persuasively argued that this is no harder than merely trying to slow aging, so we should do the job well if we are going to do it at all.
Link: http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=769D70D9-D94B-4D05-B40A-86426A3F358B