Since 1981, the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) has supported the science of healthier aging. AFAR has played a major role in providing and advancing knowledge of aging and mechanisms of age-related disease by providing start-up grants to more than 2,800 investigators and students. AFAR uniquely focuses on scientists studying the fundamental mechanisms of aging. With AFAR's support, early-career scientists from the nation's leading academic institutions are making the study of aging - in all of its facets - their life's work. The scientists that AFAR has supported have contributed scientific findings of great importance that are already dramatically changing both our understanding and practice of medicine.