Chhanda DUTTAChief, Clinical Gerontology Branch,
Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology (DGCG).
The author thanks her colleagues, Beth Wilmot, Suzana Petanceska, and Nalini Raghavachari, for their contributions to the concept and fruition of the ELITE Portal.
One of the most interesting areas in the field of aging science revolves around the small percentage of people who have unusually long and healthy lives. Studying this group could hold keys to better aging for all of us.
To help in this quest, we are happy to announce the launch of the Exceptional Longevity Translational Resources (ELITE) Portal. This new NIH-designated data repository offers researchers unprecedented tools and data with the potential to accelerate our understanding of the biological and molecular features underlying exceptional longevity.
Access major healthspan and lifespan datasets
The ELITE Portal centralizes unique data, as well as analytical and other research resources from NIA-funded studies on exceptionally long-lived individuals and cross-species studies in animal models. For example, multidimensional datasets from projects like the Long Life Family Study, Longevity Consortium, Longevity Genomics, and Integrative Longevity Omics are available in a secure environment.
The portal encourages researchers from different fields such as evolutionary biology, gerontology, genomics, and beyond to join collaborative work toward innovations in healthy aging therapeutics and novel intervention targets. Investigators exploring exceptional longevity can use ELITE’s vast, multifaceted data to find multiomics profiles, uncover new molecular pathways, pinpoint potential breakthrough drug targets, and contribute to the next wave of novel interventions.
Explore multiple types of exceptional longevity data
More data types are added regularly to the ELITE Portal, meeting its commitment to NIH data management and sharing policies, including the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) principles. ELITE is also ready for use in training machine learning and artificial intelligence models.
Inside the ELITE Portal you will find:
- Multiomics data: comprehensive genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic information
- Tissues: diverse tissues, including induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from long-lived individuals and organoids
- Descriptive text: contextual information, metadata, and documentation to support data interpretation and usage
- Phenotypic details: key information about physical, biochemical, and physiological traits, including cognitive and digital assay data
- Comparative biology resources: substantial multiomics data from over 60 animal species and multiple tissues, facilitating cross-species comparisons
- Integrative analytical tools: scalable tools, cloud computational space, and resources for data integration and analysis to discover molecular features contributing to exceptional healthspans
How to connect to the ELITE Portal
It’s easy to get started exploring the ELITE Portal, but you must create an account to download data. You can also subscribe to the ELITE Portal newsletter to stay informed about upcoming workshops, data challenges, and new discoveries from exceptional longevity researchers.
We invite you to share your suggestions on longevity-related research resources to add to the ELITE Portal. Please leave a comment below, or email me for more information.