regulation

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
• Biohacking and grindersEnhancementThe practice of modifying one's own biology outside institutional medicine, ranging from subdermal implants to do-it-yourself gene transfer and open-source medical devices.presentContested
• 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
• Enhancement in sportEnhancementThe regulation of performance enhancement in competition, the only domain that draws an operational line between therapy and enhancement and litigates it case by case.presentEstablished
• Gene dopingEnhancementThe non-therapeutic use of gene transfer or gene regulation to improve athletic performance, prohibited in sport since the early 2000s with no publicly confirmed case.late 2020sExperimental
• 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
• Governance of human genome editingSocietyThe patchwork of national law, professional norms, funding rules, and international soft law that determines what may be done to a human genome and by whom.presentEmerging
• Human cloningReproductionProducing a human genetically identical to an existing person by somatic cell nuclear transfer, demonstrated to the blastocyst stage and never taken to a pregnancy.TRL 4indefiniteContested
• Human enhancementEnhancementThe deliberate use of biomedical or technical means to extend human capacities beyond what is needed to restore or maintain ordinary health.presentContested
• In vitro fertilisationReproductionThe routine clinical procedure in which eggs are fertilised outside the body and an embryo is transferred to a uterus, and the platform every other embryo technology is built on.TRL 9presentEstablished
• LoyalOrganizationsA biotechnology company developing drugs to extend healthy lifespan in dogs, working through the veterinary regulator that will consider lifespan itself as an indication.late 2020sEmerging
• 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
• Mitochondrial replacement therapyReproductionA set of IVF techniques that place a mother's nuclear DNA in a donor egg to prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease, licensed in a few countries and used rarely.TRL 8presentEmerging
• NAD+ precursorsLongevitySupplements such as nicotinamide riboside and NMN that raise cellular NAD+ levels, with strong pharmacokinetic evidence and weak evidence of any functional benefit.TRL 4presentContested
• NeurorightsSocietyA proposed set of human rights covering mental privacy, cognitive liberty, and mental integrity, drafted in response to brain-recording and brain-stimulation technology.presentEmerging
• Nir BarzilaiPeopleIsraeli-American physician-scientist whose centenarian genetics work and proposed TAME trial aim to make aging itself an acceptable regulatory indication.presentEstablished
• NootropicsEnhancementSubstances taken to improve cognition in healthy people, a category whose best-evidenced members produce small effects and whose best-selling members produce none.TRL 5presentContested
• Off-target effects in genome editingGeneticsUnintended DNA changes caused by genome editors, either at sites resembling the target or at the target itself, and the assays used to find them.presentEstablished
• Precautionary principleSocietyThe regulatory doctrine that scientific uncertainty about a serious or irreversible harm is not by itself a reason to permit the activity that might cause it.presentContested
• Stem-cell-based embryo modelsReproductionStructures grown by aggregating stem cells that reproduce stages of early embryonic development without fertilisation, and the regulatory categories they fall outside.TRL 3late 2020sExperimental
• 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