Our work

The Geriatric Urology and Aging Urinary System Lab is led by Scott Bauer, MD, ScM at UCSF and the San Francisco VA. Our lab works to identify and target novel risk factors for accelerated urinary system aging in order to improve care for older adults with common yet debilitating urologic and urogynecologic conditions. We are particularly interested in mechanisms related to physical function, cognitive function, frailty, mitochondrial health, and cellular senescence as well as urine- and blood-based biomarkers of biological mechanisms of aging. Our collaborators include geriatricians, urologists and urogynecologists, primary care clinicians, nephrologists, epidemiologists, pharmacists, physical therapists, nurses, and basic and translational scientists. We are closely affiliated with the Kidney Health Research Collective at the San Francisco VA and the Bakar Aging Research Institute at UCSF.

Current projects

Our lab's current projects include:

• Evaluating the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationship of traditional and novel lower urinary tract symptom (LUTS) assessment tools with self-reported physical function and objective physical performance measures.
• Evaluating the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationship between mecahnisms of mobility disability (e.g. age-related changes in skeletal muscle health, cardiorespiratory fitness, physical and cognitive function, etc) and LUTS in older adults.
• Evaluating the relationship between biomarkers of biological mechanisms of aging and LUTS in older adults.
• Evaluating the bidirectional relationship between phenotypic frailty and LUTS in older men.
• Testing a remote exercise coaching intervention for physically inactive older men with LUTS (https://proudstudy.ucsf.edu/).