Nathan W. Shock (1906–1989) was the head of the Gerontology Research Center of the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

for nearly 35 years - until 1976. He then became scientist emeritus at the center. Some people call him the "father of

gerontology Gerontology ( ) is the study of the social, culture, cultural, psychology, psychological, cognitive, and biology, biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, from the Ancient Greek, Greek ('), meaning "o ...

" (although the same title is also applied to Vladimir Korenchevsky and

Ilya Mechnikov Ilya, Iliya, Ilia, Ilja, Ilija, or Illia ( , or ; ; ) is the East Slavic form of the male Hebrew name Eliyahu (Eliahu), meaning "My God is Yahu/ Jah." It comes from the Byzantine Greek pronunciation of the vocative (Ilía) of the Greek Elia ...

). He was one of the first scientists to foresee the importance of using longitudinal methods to study human aging. He clocked the rate at which different organs of the body age and showed that different individuals age at different rates. He was the author of more than 300 journal articles and books, and detailed his research in Scientific American 206:100-10, 1962.

Education

He got his B.S. in chemistry in 1926, his M.S. in organic chemistry in 1927 from

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

, and his Ph.D. in physiology/psychology in 1930 from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shock, Nathan American gerontologists 1906 births 1989 deaths Purdue University alumni University of Chicago alumni