clinical trials

Articles

• Aging biomarkersLongevityMeasurable indicators intended to track the rate or extent of biological aging, sought as surrogate endpoints so that anti-aging trials can read out in years rather than decades.late 2020sEmerging
• AI drug discoveryFoundationsThe use of machine learning to select drug targets, generate candidate molecules and predict failure, so far demonstrably faster at making compounds than at making medicines.TRL 5late 2020sEmerging
• Artificial bloodBodiesEngineered substitutes for the oxygen-carrying function of blood, including haemoglobin carriers, perfluorocarbon emulsions and cultured red cells, none in general clinical use.TRL 52030sExperimental
• Caloric restrictionLongevitySustained reduction of energy intake without malnutrition, the oldest and most reproducible lifespan-extending intervention in animals and the least proven in humans.TRL 6presentExperimental
• CasgevyGeneticsThe first approved CRISPR-based medicine, which disrupts a fetal-haemoglobin repressor in a patient's own blood stem cells to treat sickle cell disease and beta thalassaemia.TRL 9presentEmerging
• Dietary supplementsLongevityVitamins, minerals, botanicals, and other compounds sold without pre-market approval, whose large randomized trials have repeatedly failed to show benefit in well-nourished adults.TRL 9presentContested
• Exercise as a geroprotectorLongevityStructured physical activity, the intervention with the strongest evidence for extending healthy life in humans and the benchmark any geroprotective drug must beat.TRL 9presentEstablished
• Geroscience hypothesisLongevityThe proposition that aging is the shared upstream driver of most chronic disease, so that slowing it would delay many conditions at once rather than one at a time.2030sEmerging
• GLP-1 receptor agonistsLongevityDrugs that mimic the gut hormone GLP-1 to lower blood glucose and food intake, producing large weight loss that persists only while treatment continues.TRL 9presentEstablished
• Metformin and the TAME trialLongevityA generic diabetes drug proposed as a geroprotector, and the large randomized trial designed to make aging itself an acceptable regulatory indication.TRL 42030sContested
• Myostatin inhibitionEnhancementBlockade of the growth factor myostatin to increase skeletal muscle mass, an effect reproduced across species that has repeatedly failed to translate into functional benefit in humans.TRL 7late 2020sExperimental
• NeuralinkOrganizationsAmerican neurotechnology company founded in 2016 developing a wireless implanted brain–computer interface with flexible electrode threads inserted by a surgical robot.late 2020sEmerging
• Nir BarzilaiPeopleIsraeli-American physician-scientist whose centenarian genetics work and proposed TAME trial aim to make aging itself an acceptable regulatory indication.presentEstablished
• Parabiosis and young bloodLongevityExperiments joining the circulation of young and old animals, and the attempts to translate their rejuvenating effects into plasma-based treatments for humans.TRL 32030sExperimental
• Psychedelic therapyMindsThe administration of serotonergic psychedelics or MDMA alongside psychological support for psychiatric conditions, in trials that cannot be reliably blinded.TRL 7late 2020sContested
• RapamycinLongevityA macrolide immunosuppressant that inhibits the mTOR growth pathway and extends lifespan across several laboratory species, with no confirmed effect on human aging.TRL 52030sExperimental
• SenolyticsLongevityDrugs that selectively kill senescent cells, an approach that reduces age-related pathology in mice but has so far produced modest or null results in humans.TRL 52030sExperimental
• Somatic gene therapyGeneticsGenetic modification of a living person's body cells to treat disease, producing a change that is not passed on to their children.TRL 9presentEstablished
• SynchronOrganizationsA neurotechnology company developing an endovascular brain–computer interface implanted through a blood vessel rather than by opening the skull.late 2020sEmerging
• Technology readiness levelFoundationsA nine-point scale, originating at NASA, that rates how far a technology has moved from observed basic principles to proven operational use.presentEstablished
• XenotransplantationBodiesThe transplantation of organs between species, now pursued with genetically engineered pigs whose antigens and clotting proteins have been altered to survive in a human recipient.TRL 62030sExperimental
• XPRIZE HealthspanOrganizationsA $101 million incentive competition launched in 2023 that rewards a therapy restoring at least a decade of muscle, cognitive and immune function in older adults.late 2020sEmerging