The Dog Aging Project: State of the Science

Speaker:

Kate E. Creevy, DVM, MS, DACVIM (SAIM) 

Event date: 24 May 2023 Lausanne, Switzerland 

The Dog Aging Project (DAP) is a community science initiative created to investigate the genetic and environmental determinants of healthy aging in companion dogs. Dogs are powerful translational models for human health and aging, and the design of the DAP leans heavily on concepts and constructs from human gerontology, geroscience, and the basic biology of aging.  

Researchers are creating a detailed description of companion dog aging and characterizing dimensions of the aging experience—frailty and multimorbidity—that are proving to be valuable to human aging research. Project investigators intend to validate reliable measures of dog frailty and multimorbidity that can be readily used by clinicians as well as researchers.  

Dr. Creevy shares results from recent and upcoming publications by the DAP team which emphasize the nuanced description of the aging trajectory of dogs and the factors that have been found to be associated with age-related health outcomes.