The Larry L. Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging was founded in 2002 with generous financial support from the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, which has made many grants to UCSF for scientific research related to aging and age-related illness.

The mission of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging is to create an interactive community of investigators studying aging and age-related disease as a way of facilitating research and medical breakthroughs. Research has shown that aging and many age-related diseases have similar molecular causes. For example, mutations in insulin/IGF-1 signaling that delay aging and extend lifespan also delay the onset of many age-related diseases. Thus the need for researchers to be able to share their findings with one another becomes critical.  UCSF has many excellent investigators studying aging, age-related disease, and the basic science underlying these processes, and the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging brings them together.  We have a journal club and annual Molecules-to-Medicine symposium, to share ideas and information.  The center also awards two prestigious graduate fellowships each year. The Hillblom Graduate Fellows give presentations in the journal club, and present posters at the annual symposium.