Plenary Lecture 3: Bridging Frailty Research: Translating Insights From the Clinic to Preclinical Models and Back
| Wednesday, July 15, 2026 |
| 8:00 AM - 8:50 AM |
Overview
Prof Susan Howlett
Details
The concept of frailty refers to variability in the risk of harmful health outcomes in people of the same chronological age. Frailty can be quantified in humans with a frailty index (FI) based on deficit accumulation. A FI is constructed by assessing diverse health deficits across various bodily systems and dividing the number of deficits in an individual by the total number of deficits considered. The degree of frailty is scored between 0 and 1, with higher scores indicating greater frailty. If more than 30 deficits are considered, the degree of frailty reflects the number of deficits rather than their nature. Critically, the FI instrument has now been reverse-translated to assess frailty in aging animals. Direct comparisons of the FI features observed in humans and mouse models have shown considerable homology. Signature features present in both include: a) deficits accumulate at ~3% per year; b) there is a limit to frailty (FI score 0.5-0.7) beyond which additional deficits are not survivable; c) FI scores are higher in females than males; and d) high FI scores predict mortality. This FI tool is widely used in research applications. For instance, some interventions, including geroprotectors and exercise, attenuate frailty in aging mouse models. Others, like radiation exposure and polypharmacy, exacerbate frailty in mouse models. Investigations in aging mice provided proof-of-concept that an FI based solely on routinely collected clinical laboratory data can quantify frailty. Based on this preclinical work, an “FI-Lab” tool is now widely used to quantify frailty clinically. The development of FIs that can quantify the degree of frailty in humans and in preclinical models is a critical discovery that will help advance a molecular understanding of frailty and will shed light on how interventions designed to modify frailty affect healthspan in our aging population.
Speaker
Prof Susan Howlett
Dalhousie University
Bridging Frailty Research: Translating Insights From the Clinic to Preclinical Models and Back
Biography
Susan Howlett is Professor of Pharmacology and Medicine (Geriatric Medicine) at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where she has taught for more than 30 years. She has led discovery research into how age, frailty, and sex steroid hormones affect cardiovascular function and predispose towards heart diseases in later life. With a strong record of funding from agencies including the Canada Biomedical Research Fund, the River Phillips Foundation, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC), she has held uninterrupted support from one or more of these agencies since 1990. She is Associate Editor for The Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences and is on numerous editorial boards for prominent journals in the field. As the national Chair of the Scientific Review Committee for the HSFC and Chair of the Dalhousie Cardiac Research group (DalCREW), she has extensive leadership experience at the local, national, and international levels. She has an H-index of 58, has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, 16 encyclopedia / book chapters, and has given more than 145 invited national and international presentations. Her work has been selected as Editor’s Choice, featured in numerous editorials, and has been F1000Prime Recommended. An enthusiastic supervisor, her training and mentorship of now generations of young scientists, the great bulk of whom have pursued academic careers, speaks to her ability to inspire young researchers.
Session chair
Donald Mager
Univ. at Buffalo, SUNY
Rebecca Ritchie
Professor And Theme Leader (head Of Unit), Drug Discovery Biology
Monash University
