Moonshots for aging

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a radical, moonshot approach to aging research, emphasizing unconventional strategies beyond traditional biological interventions to significantly extend human healthspan and lifespan.

Contribution

It proposes a bold, moonshot philosophy for aging research, encouraging exploration of radical and unconventional solutions beyond current biological methods.

Findings

Highlights the need for innovative, high-risk approaches to aging.

Draws parallels between space exploration and aging research.

Calls for a paradigm shift in aging studies.

Abstract

As the global population ages, there is increased interest in living longer and improving one's quality of life in later years. However, studying aging - the decline in body function - is expensive and time-consuming. And despite research success to make model organisms live longer, there still aren't really any feasible solutions for delaying aging in humans. With space travel, scientists couldn't know what it would take to get to the moon. They had to extrapolate from theory and shorter-range tests. Perhaps with aging, we need a similar moonshot philosophy. And though "shot" might imply medicine, perhaps we need to think beyond biological interventions. Like the moon, we seem a long way away from provable therapies to increase human healthspan (the healthy period of one's life) or lifespan (how long one lives). This review therefore focuses on radical proposals. We hope it might stimulate discussion on what we might consider doing significantly differently than ongoing aging research.