The ability to respond to and recover from a physically stressful event is defined as physical resilience. Because of the inherent individual variation in response to a specific stressor with increasing age, the ability to document resilience at a younger age would likely predict that an individual would be more resilient at an older age. In a preliminary experiment, this concept was tested in a mouse model of wound healing consisting of a through and through 2 mm biopsy within the central area of each ear. A cohort of 20 female and 20 male C57BL/6 mice (an inbred mouse strain used extensively in aging research), 18 months of age, were biopsied and the area of closure measured after two weeks using a digital imaging procedure. The area of closure showed that the biopsy opening healed at variable rates depending on each individual mouse independent of sex, but clustering resulted in two main groups of approximately equal numbers, a fast-healing group and a slow-healing group. The data were analyzed by me (student first author), and I was able to assess the correlation of the two groups six months later with data on aging parameters for learning, strength, and agility when mice were 24 months of age. I found that mice with faster ear biopsy closures were better learners, and showed increased strength compared to mice with slower ear biopsy closures. I will be doing a special stain for collagen on formalin fixed ear wound areas to confirm the healing process and see if digital imaging staining intensity correlates with healing rate and aging parameters. These preliminary observations suggest that a simple skin biopsy procedure can be used to predict levels of resilience to aging phenotypes and identify mice at increased risk for age-related frailty conditions.