History of the Gerontology Research Group

The Gerontology Research Group (GRG) was formally founded in October 1990 as a scientific discussion group, with the focus on aging (anti-aging in particular), at UCLA. GRG was co-founded by Dr. L. Stephen Coles and Dr. Steven Kaye. The GRG, for the first few years, focused on in-person meetings on the UCLA campus. Later, an e-mail discussion group was added.

The GRG website (www.grg.org) emerged in May 1995. In 1998 begun the tracking of living supercentenarians. In the beginning, the list of oldest living people were updated on regular basis by Dr. L. Stephen Coles and Louis Epstein. In 1999, Robert Young joined the project and the focus on the tracking of supercentenarians has been intensified. Since 2000, the GRG members have participated in the Supercentenarian Workshop Conferences, organized by Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock. In 2002, Robert Young became responsible for the supercentenarians tables. By this time, the case acceptance date was introduced and the Excel format was adopted, respectively, in 2001 and 2002. Also, the case documents became to be systematically processed, evaluated, and stored. In 2006, the validation process has been improved by the addition of application date and the establishment of pending status. Between years 2000-2014, the Gerontology Research Group has received support from many other researchers and was able to establish a team of international correspondents, collecting data from various countries in the world.

The modern goals of the Gerontology Research Group include determining how long humans live, based on validated statistical methods, determining whether humans living today are living longer than humans in the past, determining why humans don't live longer than they do, identifying potential ways to increase the human lifespan and the discovery of statistical proof that the human lifespan is increasing.

Sadly, on Dec. 3, 2014 the founder and leader of the GRG project, Dr. L. Stephen Coles, passed away at 73, leaving a firm organization involving many researchers dedicated to study the phenomenon of extreme human longevity; an organization recognized by world's leading media as authority in the field of supercentenarian study, cooperating with the Guinness World Records and International Database on Longevity.