According to me, reaching a healthspan of 100 years or more can be achieved through a combination of lifestyle choices, preventive medical exams and treatments, and food supplements/drugs in the near future. The latest scientific breakthroughs in the longevity field are just starting to scratch the surface of the incredible complexity of the living beings, but already with intriguing and promising results.
However there’s still a lot of work to be done before we consider a treatment to slow down aging as common as taking an aspirin:
-money in this field is still scarce
-the field is still plagued with many charlatans, bullshit marketers and plain dreamers
-the drug validation is incredibly long and structured in such a way that it can’t easily be adapted to aging as a disease
-the public opinion is mitigated because of ethical issues
Here’s what can be done to accelerate the R&D in longevity:
-awaken the public opinion on the last scientific breakthroughs, to let them know how close we are to a major discovery in longevity
-help policy makers declare an “unlimited funding”, “Apollo program” style financing (when the US was able to land on the Moon in less than 10 years after starting this ambitious project)
-massively bet on AI in biotech. Everybody talks about ChatGPT these days, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, because everyone can understand so easily what an intelligent chatbot is, and play with it, but what AI is doing in biotech (and so many other fields) is at least just as powerful and fascinating.
-design new smart funding models for biotech startups, which do not fit into the standard framework (invest now and exit in 5-10 years with a ROI x3 or so)
I’ll write about each one of these points in detail in my future blog posts, stay tuned!