10/08/2026
View from AFAR: What the Age of Longevity Asks of Science
Years ago, I bet my colleague Jay Olshansky that at least one person who was alive in the year 2000 (and could even have been born that year) would live 150 years. Neither of us will be around in 2150 to settle it, which may be the only safe kind of bet in my field.
I've been thinking about that wager this week. The United Nations is marking International Day of Older Persons under the theme "The Age of Longevity: Rethinking Systems for Longer Lives" (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)). Whether anyone reaches 150 matters less to me than a nearer question: can the years most of us already get be healthier ones?
When Dr. Irving Wright founded AFAR in 1981, aging research was a young field with an image problem: many people associated it with late-night ads for miracle cures. AFAR's first grants, in 1982, were four awards totaling $60,000. Behind them was a wager of a different kind: that the rigorous study of healthy aging could one day delay the diseases that come with it.
Forty-five years later, that idea has a name, geroscience, and a growing body of evidence. Aging is the biggest risk factor for heart disease, cancer, dementia, and most chronic conditions of later life. When we target the biology underneath, we have a chance to delay many of those diseases at once.
Rethinking systems for longer lives has to include the research system and the scientists who lead it. In 45 years, AFAR has supported nearly 5,000 researchers, many at the moment when a first grant decides whether they commit to the field. Some went on to found the Dog Aging Project. Others now run the labs setting the field's direction. Our MSTAR program has introduced more than 2,000 medical students to aging research. And AFAR now receives more strong applications than it can fund.
Every strong proposal we can't fund is a scientist we risk losing. I'll never find out whether I won my bet with Jay. The bet AFAR placed in 1981 is one you can still join. This International Day of Older Persons, help us fund the next generation at afar.org.
- Steven N. Austad, PhD, AFAR Scientific Director
