In 1988, The Honorable Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington established the Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Center on Aging at Baylor College of Medicine. Today, the Huffington Center on Aging (HCOA) is recognized as one of the premier centers on aging in the world. Click here to see a photo of Ambassador Huffington on the occasion of his becoming a nonagenarian. This remarkable person exemplifies the notion of successful aging. At his 90th birthday party, he said his legs were a little "rubbery" due to his having worked out that morning doing over a 150 deep knee bends! How many can you do? See the photos taken of his 87th birthday party in the right panel of this webpage. He still looks the same. Do you?

The 2008 Spring Forum,  the first of the two main events celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the HCOA, was enjoyed by over 350 people at the sell-out event on April 22nd at the River Oaks Country Club. This year's program co-chaired by Lavonne Cox and Maria Bush  included presentations by noted Houston surgeon/TV personality Dr. Red Duke on stress management; by Ms. Denise Landers' talk on optimizing time in one's routine; and by Dr. Esther Sternberg of the NIH in Washington on exciting research results on the biology of stress and the implications for our emotions and health. You'll have to ask those there about the fantastic style show and wonderful lunch in the beautiful surroundings of Houston's storied River Oaks Country Club. Call Carolyn Stubbs at (713) 798-3802 to make sure you don't miss the second major event commemorating 20 years of geriatrics in Houston, the Crystal Gala Ball on December 10, 2008 that will also be at the ROCC. You can also e-mail Ms. Stubbs at cstubbs@bcm.edu.

Recent Faculty and Staff Kudos -- Dateline Houston, Texas, March 25th, "New Era in Geriatrics Begins," would likely have been the headline of a news story on the retirement of Robert J. Luchi, MD, founding director of the HCOA. Rather than focus on the end of a brilliant 38-year career at Baylor, at a retirement party attended by over 100 persons, we celebrated Dr. Luchi's accomplishments and toasted his future life with his wife, Jean, in Kansas City where their son Dr. Michael Luchi teaches at the KU medical center. His contributions to medicine and humanity aren't over yet. In fact, the legacy he leaves will live on in the numbers of fellows and faculty he helped train and with whom he worked. The older people for whom they render kind, compassionate, state-of-the-art geriatrics care will be the beneficiaries of Dr. Luchi's pioneering efforts to learn what he needed to know about geriatrics, establish an aging program, and teach that to others, all the while caring for thousands of older people whose lives were made better for what this son of an Italian immigrant and native Pennsylvanian did when he came to Houston in 1970.

Here are some links to photos taken at various events during Dr. Luchi's long tenure at Baylor:

1) Click on these two links for scenes at the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the HCOA and of 10 years of collaboration with the then-Houston VA Hospital: http://www.hcoa.org/features/10th_part2.htm and http://www.hcoa.org/class/features/chili_cookoff.htm

2) And click on this link to see Dr. Luchi giving the Joseph T. Freeman Award Lecture at the GSA meeting in Boston in 2001: http://www.hcoa.org/features/GSA%20Freeman%202002/congratulations.htm.

3) This link shows a party in 2002 on the occasion of Dr. Luchi's 50th year in medicine:                     http://www.hcoa.org/features/20-50%20party/celebration_of_50_years_in_geria.htm.

4) In March 1998, Dr. Luchi celebrated his 70th birthday: see this link to a brief story about that day and an early photo of him at age nine http://www.hcoa.org/staff/robert_luchi.htm.

5) On March 25th, following Dr. Luchi's 80th birthday on which he was skiing in Idaho, many photos were taken of the those who came to honor him and congratulate him on what he did for humankind during his 38 years in Houston. Click here for photos taken, respectively, by (a) Dr. Victor Narcisse, one of Dr. Luchi's former fellows, and (b) John, the husband of Nancy Wilson who was Mistress of Ceremonies at the retirement party:

(a) http://narcisse.smugmug.com/gallery/4620308_ZSDwP#272579255 and (b) http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlw3711/.

So, Dr. Bob Luchi, we begin new eras in our respective cities: geriatrics in Houston and your life in Kansas City. You will long be remembered and much admired. Like the lyric of the theme song of another famous Bob, "thanks for the memories."

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For more kudos, See photo of Dr. Michael E. DeBakey taken on Friday, 8 February 2008 at a lecture he gave at Baylor in which he recounted the research he performed in the early 1960's on dacron grafts that ultimately led to widespread use in vascular surgery. In speaking to the students, Dr. DeBakey pointed out that after all these years, dacron grafts still work well, and that he is the beneficiary of his own work: i.e., his dissecting aorta was successfully, and in his words "providentially," repaired with one. He brought laughter to those fortunate to hear him by saying, "See, there's value to one's research." As this writer listened to Dr. DeBakey's elegant remarks,  the thought that they were being given by a person born in 1908 -- do the math! -- formed a visual metaphor for successful aging. Thank you, Dr. DeBakey for being our hero and our model for a long life well lived in service to God, country, and mankind. Perhaps some young student who heard him speak will rise to his level of contributions to medicine and, on the occasion of nearing his or her own 100th birthday, give a similar talk to then-Baylor students. Were this to be the case, those students will be practicing medicine in 2108 on the 200th anniversary of Dr. DeBakey's birth. Such is the circle of life and the value of research. And for us to help many more persons attain the century mark and still give great lectures and enjoy life, we must have and do much more research on the aging process.

Speaking of one HCOA researcher who has a tie to Dr. DeBakey, click here to see a photo of Adam Antebi, PhD, receiving one of the 2007 Michael E. DeBakey Excellence in Research Awards. Dr. Antebi's lecture given at the award ceremony was entitled "Understanding Life Stages, Aging, and the Nature of Biological Time." His groundbreaking work is on how genes and environment influence the life stages and  life span in the small roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, an important model genetic organism in biology. He has found that certain steroid hormones, called dafachronic acids, regulate the growth and maturation of the animals in ways analagous to how estrogen and androgen steroids promote reproductive maturation of humans. In addition, Dr. Antebi has found that these steroids influence the life span, in some cases causing the worm to live 50-60% longer. Dafachronic acids bind to a protein called a nuclear hormone receptor, which turns on genes in the nucleus of the cell, thereby affecting survival. Understanding how these molecules work together to impact life stages and life span could shed light on similar processes in higher animals, like us.

N.B. Editor's note: So, like the research Dr. DeBakey performed led to clinical practices that saved countless lives, Dr. Antebi's research may well lead to longer lives in which we can pursue noble goals to ensure sustainable, healthy futures for our children and peace and prosperity for all. Isn't that worth investing more of our considerable resources? How legislatures, congresses, and governments around the world appropriate their fiscal resources for a healthy planet and its inhabitants may just determine how long and well we and all creatures live.

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