The Longevity Initiative

A think tank and educational organisation working towards a world free from age-related disease. Founded by @statto and @shoylev.

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Hi! We are The Longevity Initiative, a new think tank and educational organisation working towards a world free from age-related disease, where longevity medicines are accessible to everyone.

Find out more at our website, https://t.co/XbZK90irMu 🐢

[Babraham Research Campus @BabrahamUK]

An interesting read for those in the longevity space

https://t.co/Mhq4NtKPDR

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

We’ve been on there for a while, but just officially launched on @LinkedIn!

Check out our article on what we started a think tank, not a biotech – and please give us a follow over there and share our page with your network. https://t.co/W0pqLkOexP

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Lovely to see a spike in traffic for our 2025 longevity business round-up last week as the @RetroBio_ news broke!

If you're catching up on the reprogramming gold rush, the biotech funding drought and recent big exits, it’s all here: https://t.co/n8bC046ToU

[Linus Petersson @LinusPeters]

Ageing kills 83% of Americans. It gets 0.8% of the research budget.
https://t.co/0UpfgsvwDr

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

@drrichjlaw @CrisprGlenn @theA4LI What I don’t think follows from that is that research specifically targeting aging should get *so* much less funding per death/economic cost/etc than other conditions. – @statto

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Does NIH research funding track what actually kills Americans?

Building on @theA4LI’s new report, we ran the numbers: and ageing fares worst.

Ageing causes 83% of deaths, yet receives just 1.2% of the research funding per death that cancer does—around $1 per American per year.

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

@drrichjlaw @CrisprGlenn @theA4LI I think I see where you’re going! And I’d push back slightly—all fields have spillovers and (as we mention in the post) we should try to account for these when allocating funding. But this cuts both ways: funding for ‘aging biology’ would likely also help eg diabetes research.

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

@schw90 @theA4LI We agree, a methodology like this would suggest substantial changes in funding beyond longevity. Just one example, our Director @statto has spoken a lot about funding biology data collection for AI.

[The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (A4LI) @theA4LI]

A fantastic complement to our whitepaper, kudos! The math on our current funding allocation within the NIH simply does not add up, and only by Realigning For Impact can we bring research funding in line with what really kills us.

If @longevityinit's report, or ours has convinced you, we urge you to sign the petition to get this issue in front of your representatives!

https://t.co/oRxWXrME2X

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

@schw90 @theA4LI Our data and sources are shown in the post and attached Google Sheet.

And a more thorough study that attributes research across departments more carefully is on our to-do list!

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

@FVE1234 @statto We want people to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Read our full analysis here: https://t.co/7s4MS15r2Z

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

New post: Can longevity save us from a population crisis?

We tried out @OurWorldInData’s new population projection tool to see if increasing life expectancy could save us from demographic decline: https://t.co/23CQ49hkQi

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

New post: Can longevity save us from a population crisis?

We tried out @OurWorldInData’s new population projection tool to see if increasing life expectancy could save us from demographic decline: https://t.co/23CQ49hkQi

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

The Human Ageing Genomic Resources are vital open-source databases on longevity genes and drugs, and animal lifespans. It would be a loss to the field if it goes offline due to funding cuts.

See @jpsenescence’s post here for more details and how to support:

[João Pedro de Magalhães @jpsenescence]

🚨 The Human Ageing Genomic Resources Are at Risk

For over 20 years, our Human Ageing Genomic Resources (HAGR) have supported ageing and longevity research worldwide (200,000+ users per year, 1,000+ citations, widely used by academic labs and longevity biotech).

Due to shifting UK government funding priorities, our infrastructure funding was not renewed in 2024, and these databases are now at risk of going offline.

We are raising funds to cover basic server costs and secure their continuity while we pursue long-term funding.

If these resources have supported your research, your company, or your thinking, please consider helping sustain them.

https://t.co/bFryPX5vnS

[João Pedro de Magalhães @jpsenescence]

🚨 The Human Ageing Genomic Resources Are at Risk

For over 20 years, our Human Ageing Genomic Resources (HAGR) have supported ageing and longevity research worldwide (200,000+ users per year, 1,000+ citations, widely used by academic labs and longevity biotech).

Due to shifting UK government funding priorities, our infrastructure funding was not renewed in 2024, and these databases are now at risk of going offline.

We are raising funds to cover basic server costs and secure their continuity while we pursue long-term funding.

If these resources have supported your research, your company, or your thinking, please consider helping sustain them.

https://t.co/bFryPX5vnS

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Our co-founder @statto spoke with @bigthink about why we need longevity science.

Check out the interview here: https://t.co/gc0GiHvOiG

[Big Think @bigthink]

Why even the healthiest people hit a wall at age 70 | Andrew Steele @statto

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Be sure to check out @RaianyRomanni’s thread and the full report for much more detail.

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

We’re very excited to see the launch of this from @RaianyRomanni and collaborators. Quantifying the return on investment into longevity is hugely important to make the case for research—and perhaps more neglected than the science itself.

We look forward to digging into this:

[Raiany Romanni-Klein @RaianyRomanni]

How could tiny breakthroughs in aging science change U.S. GDP and population growth?

What’s the economic value of making 41 the new 40, or 65 the new 60?

How many lives could we create or save if we could slow reproductive or brain aging by just 1 year? What would billions of healthier hours be worth to the economy, if we assume no change in the age of retirement?

I spent the last two years obsessing over the design, research, and execution of this project. The result is a book upcoming with Harvard University Press, a preprint, and—maybe your favorite part—an interactive simulation tool that lets you input your own timelines and assumptions for specific breakthroughs in aging bio, then see the ROI in terms of US population & GDP growth.

From @RickEcon and Jason DeBacker—the economists who co-developed the open-source, macro model that made this project possible—to extensive comments by @tylercowen, @sapinker, Richard Freeman, @NDHendrix, @ebudish, @elidourado, @geochurch, @jasoncrawford as well as interviews with 102 scientists (!) and countless iterations with award-winning designer Giorgia Lupi and the @pentagram team, we built something we hope will be a benchmark for how scientists, economists, designers, philosophers, entrepreneurs and storytellers can come together to paint, fund, and build different flourishing futures for our species.

I couldn’t be more excited to share this. It’s the start of an open and evolving project—the labor and product of love, obsession, and unrelenting care.

I hope you have fun playing with our simulation tool — and if you do, please share!

[The Longevity Initiative @longevityinit]

Be sure to check out the interactive simulations at https://t.co/Ro9YL9UsJG to see what it takes to save trillions.

The team calculates that reversing biological aging in the US by just one year would add $408 billion to GDP—$27 *trillion* in ‘net present value’ in the long run.