Buck Institute For Research On Aging

Buck Institute For Research On Aging, a nonprofit research organization headquartered in Novato, California, receives federal research funding as a prime grant recipient in basic and translational aging research, with exposure to applied research contracts through DARPA. The institute does not hold federal contract vehicles as a prime and does not engage in contract subcontracting; federal engagement is predominantly through NIH grant mechanisms (181 prime awards, 87% of total awards) and one DARPA Other Transaction IDV.

The institute's research portfolio centers on geroscience — the biology and mechanisms of aging — with concrete capability areas spanning cellular senescence, proteomics and metabolomics, Alzheimer's disease and neurodegeneration, mitochondrial function, metabolic aging, and immunosenescence. Representative work includes a $809,486 National Institute on Aging (NIA) Project Grant (CFDA 93.866) through January 2031 investigating OXR1 and retromer proteins in brain aging and Alzheimer's disease using fruit fly and human-induced pluripotent stem cell models; a $1.759 million NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs grant (CFDA 93.351) for a Bruker timsTOF Flex MALDI-2 mass spectrometry system for spatial molecular imaging of proteins, lipids, and metabolites in human and animal tissues; and a National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Project Grant awarded September 2024 for spatial proteomics of osteoarthritis bone using mass spectrometry imaging and proteomic profiling. Additional recent work includes a $809,486 NIA grant on the role of dietary restriction and oxidation resistance in neurodegeneration (February 2026 through January 2031), an NIA Cooperative Agreement on organ-specific blood biomarkers of aging and cardiovascular health (June 2024 through March 2029), and NIA-funded research on cellular senescence, mitochondrial dysfunction, and lysosomal biology as hallmarks of aging.

Customer concentration is dominated by the National Institutes of Health. The top five funding agencies account for 84% of recent awards: the National Institute on Aging (68 awards) and broader NIH (76 awards combined with all NIH institutes and offices) drive nearly the entire prime grant footprint, followed by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (13 awards), the Office of the Director (9 awards), and HHS broadly (7 awards). DARPA's $7.994 million Other Transaction IDV on the Simulating Microbial System program (awarded June 2025) represents the institute's only significant contract exposure and does not sit on a traditional GSA or agency IDIQ vehicle.

The institute's grant footprint includes sub-award work across eleven partner institutions. Recent sub-awardee relationships include Stanford University (immune aging dynamics and inflammatory endothelium studies using iPSCs), Johns Hopkins University (senescence-associated secretory phenotype markers in pancreas and other tissues), the University of California, San Francisco (spatial proteomics and osteocytic mechanisms in bone quality and exercise response), the University of Pittsburgh (sirtuin biology and peroxisomal metabolism), the University of Washington (intracranial pressure monitoring of astronauts on ISS), and Brown University (FoxO3 biology in stem cells and aging). The institute also serves as a sub-recipient on training and education grants, including the Geroscience Education and Training (GET) Network (October 2024) and multi-institutional senescent cell mapping and validation efforts.

Recent activity shows eleven awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months (as of July 2026), representing recompete exposure. The award rate has been steady at ten to twelve grants per year over 2022–2024, with fewer new awards recorded in 2025 and early 2026. The combined potential value across all 207 awards (prime and sub, NIH and DARPA) totals approximately $8 million; the discrepancy between potential value and obligated dollars ($506.5 million obligated against $8 million potential value) reflects the source's capture of real invoiced revenue as the primary metric — typical for NIH grant work where funding is obligated year-by-year as grants progress rather than recorded upfront as contract potential value.