The Gerontology Research Group (GRG) was started in 1990, and is a global eGroup of researchers in gerontology, some of whom also meet monthly at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. The primary function of the group is to further gerontology research, with the objective of reversing or retarding aging. Its most notable activity, though, is its tracking of supercentenarians (people aged at least 110).
The group was co-founded by L. Stephen Coles who is the Director and Treasurer of the Supercentenarian Research Foundation. The other co-founder was Steven M. Kaye. Editions of the Guinness World Records through the year 2008 indicate that the Gerontology Research Group is used as its authority for its "World's Oldest Living People" category, which the group verifies using birth and marriage certificates. The New York Times wrote that the GRG has been recognized as "an authority on the matter" of verifying supercentenarians. The group started as an organization to investigate the limits of life spans in all mammalian species, and around 1998–1999 they started a committee to investigate claims to find out who was the oldest living person at any point in time. The organization is monitoring approximately 80 people whom they have validated for inclusion in their list of living supercentenarians, mostly females.
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