Scientific leaders get behind new longevity declaration

The “Dublin Longevity Declaration” calls on public institutions to immediately expand research on extending healthy human lifespans.

The Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF) has released a declaration that calls on governments, funding agencies and the public to accelerate their support of the promising interventional ideas that aim to fight age-related suffering and disease.

The “Dublin Longevity 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 ageing is not inevitable and that there are early scientific results suggesting that the biological age of an individual is modifiable.

“The LEV Foundation wholeheartedly encourages anyone who supports the message of the declaration to add their signature […] and to urge others to do the same,” said Martin O’Dea, founding LEVF Board Member.

“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.”

The questions of why humans age and what can be done about it have now reached the mainstream. However, the LEVF believes that more public and financial support focused specifically on the field of longevity medicine is required to reap the human, societal and economic benefits in combatting age-related disease.

Dr Aubry de Grey led the effort to create and gain consensus for the declaration, along with O’Dea and primary author Dr Brian Kennedy, director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity and professor of biochemistry and physiology at the National University of Singapore.

“We wanted to put this out there because everyone knows ageing 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,” Dr Kennedy added. “The grand challenge of ageing is foremost among these.”