Scientific Leaders Issue global “Dublin Longevity Declaration”
Consensus Recommendation to Immediately Expand Research on Extending Healthy Human Lifespans
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, October 3, 2023—The Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF) welcomes the publication today of the “Dublin Longevity Declaration”. This Declaration calls on governments, funding agencies and the public to accelerate their support for the promising interventional ideas that exist today to fight age-related suffering and disease, and for the generation and exploration of more such ideas.
The Declaration has already been signed by a global group of more than 50 leading longevity scientists, including Dr. Aubrey de Grey, the President and Chief Science Officer of LEVF.
The Declaration expresses a consensus statement from longevity scientists that aging is not inevitable, and that there are early scientific results suggesting that the biological age of an individual is modifiable.
The questions of why humans age and what we can do about it, two of the biggest questions in human biology, have now reached the mainstream, but more public and financial support focused specifically on the field of longevity medicine is required to reap the human, societal and economic benefits of progress in combating age-related disease.
Dr. de Grey led the effort to create and gain consensus for the Declaration, along with primary author Dr. Brian Kennedy, Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity and Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Physiology at the National University of Singapore, and Martin O’Dea, founding LEVF Board Member.
“We wanted to put this out there because everyone knows aging is bad, everyone says it’s bad, but nobody does anything about it,” said Dr. de Grey. “Like bad weather – people are stuck in the assumption that nothing can be done, even if we try. We wanted to put that assumption to rest.”
“Optimism about a better future drives us still, and one way to move forward is to answer the big questions in biology,” said Dr. Kennedy. “The grand challenge of aging is foremost among these.”
Click Here to SIGN THE DECLARATION
“The LEV Foundation wholeheartedly encourages anyone who supports the message of the Declaration to add their signature, via DublinLongevityDeclaration.org, and to urge others to do the same,” said Martin O’Dea. “We believe that demonstrating both expert consensus and broad public support for the extension of healthy lifespans will have the greatest impact in swaying policymakers and institutions to acknowledge and align with the paradigm shift now taking root across medical science.”
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Media Contacts:
Melissa King San Francisco
+1-415-816-1051
melissa@levf.org
Martin O’Dea Dublin
+353-87-628-3265
martin@levf.org
About Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation: LEVF is a nonprofit organization working to cure and prevent age-related disease. Its science program is focused on empirically demonstrating the feasibility and value of the divide-and-conquer approach to treating age-related disease, namely the simultaneous deployment of therapies that independently address the distinct classes of damage that accumulate in aging bodies. Other scientific work supported includes explorations in the field of tissue engineering, specifically for the production of genetically matched, biologically youthful whole organs able to replace those laboring under the weight of aging-induced deterioration. With the recognition that the underlying cause of most widespread diseases is the aging process itself, the organization also works and partners with other organizations to advance public and financial support for fields of advanced therapies, regenerative cell therapies and other enabling technologies.
Some Frequently Asked Questions:
Who is the intended audience for this Declaration?
The audience is anyone who may be inspired to take action in support of the activities mentioned in the Declaration: raising awareness of recent scientific advances, joining project teams doing relevant research and development, and helping to assign significant resources (including funding) in support of these projects.
Why release the Declaration at this time?
Two main reasons: first, as stated in the text, there is a recent and swiftly growing body of concrete evidence that meaningful control over aging is likely to be achievable – yet most public discourse still treats the concept as wishful thinking at best. (It’s understandable that people don’t want to get their hopes up in vain! We are trying to give them confidence that those hopes are not in vain.) Second, the status quo is very clearly unsustainable: consider the near exhaustion of funding for Medicare and the millions of excess deaths that would be expected following a 10% reduction in payments.
Where is the funding mentioned in the Declaration expected to come from?
The signatories are keeping an open mind on that topic. In general, the Declaration seeks to influence (directly and indirectly) people who control budgets for both public and private sources of funding, including governments, sovereign wealth funds, and philanthropic organizations
What is the relationship between the DLD and LEVF/Aubrey de Grey?
Brian Kennedy and Aubrey de Grey are the scientific co-authors of the original text, with amendments also suggested by some of the initial signatories. LEVF is publishing the Declaration on behalf of the signatories, handling the collection of additional signatures, and supporting media outreach.
What makes you think the treatments mentioned in the Declaration will be available to everyone?
Caring for people with chronic health conditions is phenomenally expensive. Reduce that cost by tackling the underlying aging processes and there are suddenly far more resources available to support access to healthcare for the less affluent in world society.
Why is it the “Dublin” Longevity Declaration?
The ideas for the Declaration were discussed with speakers in the run-up to the Longevity Summit Dublin held in August 2023, where the forthcoming launch of the Declaration was also first announced.
What’s the evidence that “A five-year extension in human healthspan, with equitable access for all people, would save trillions per year in healthcare costs”?
See the Nature Aging article “The economic value of targeting aging” by Andrew J. Scott, Martin Ellison, and David A. Sinclair, https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-021-00080-0 – extract: “We show that a slowdown in aging that increases life expectancy by 1 year is worth US$38 trillion, and by 10 years, US$367 trillion. Ultimately, the more progress that is made in improving how we age, the greater the value of further improvements.”
Is “a lot of scientists agree they’d like more grant funding” really news?
What’s news is the unprecedented level of consensus on (1) the credibility of plans to attain faster progress if additional funding is made available, (2) the basic approaches that have a significant probability of producing useful progress towards the control of
age-related diseases.