Competition is heating up for researchers in the rapidly growing field of ageing research. Some two dozen faculty-level scientists and postdocs are being recruited by new or expanding US institutes.

“Ageing is hot because it covers almost every aspect of biology and underlies most major human diseases,” says Andrew Dillin, director of the new Center for Aging Research at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

Funded by a $5-million grant from the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research in Carpinteria, California, the centre will support up to three new research groups. It will build on the Salk Institute's research strengths in metabolism, stem-cell biology, ageing of dividing cells and ageing of organisms. The centre is recruiting seven or eight postdocs to work on a joint project in two labs. The funding will also accommodate two or three visiting scholars each year. Staying for three to six months, they will build collaborative research projects involving multiple labs, and organize a symposium on a topic of their choice.

Collaborations may extend beyond the Salk campus. Although the details aren't finalized, Salk biologist Fred Gage says there is potential for synergy with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, two other Glenn funding recipients. MIT's Glenn Laboratory for the Science of Aging — which focuses on ageing regulators, such as proteins known as sirtuins that allow cells to survive damage and delay death — is recruiting four postdocs. The $5-million Glenn gift received last autumn will fund its work on mouse models of ageing and ageing diseases, including Alzheimer's, cancer, osteoporosis and metabolic diseases.

The Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, California, is seeking a faculty-level stem-cell researcher now and will soon fill 12 more faculty posts at a $41-million research facility, half-funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Scheduled to open in 2010, it will provide more dedicated space for stem-cell biology, an area with potential to diagnose and treat age-related disease. “Ageing is one of the frontiers of science and we've created an institute that sits at the interface between ageing and age-related disease research,” says biologist Gordon Lithgow.

“One of the overarching questions is what constitutes healthy ageing,” says Gage. “We want to learn how to optimize the process because, unlike a disease, ageing isn't going away.”