Longevity researchers map the field’s open questions
Science moves on the right questions. A gathering of leading aging researchers tried to define those questions from scratch. What emerged says a great deal about where the field stands today.
In September 2025, the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine in Lisbon brought together researchers, clinicians, artists, and civil society representatives for three days of discussion on aging and longevity. The format was deliberately designed to ask new questions rather than present new answers.
The meeting produced a report now published in Nature Aging. The researchers describe which themes were seen as most urgent and where the largest gaps in knowledge and approach remain. A recurring point: the field knows a great deal about the molecular mechanisms of aging, but far less about how those insights translate into better health for actual people.
From the laboratory to society
A central tension running through the discussions was the gap between basic research and real-world application. Researchers can rejuvenate cells in a dish, but those results rarely translate directly into treatments that work in an old and complex human body. Bridging that gap requires more than better science. It also demands different funding structures, ethical frameworks, and public trust.
Participants also stressed that aging is not purely a biological problem. Socioeconomic factors, access to healthcare, and living conditions substantially shape how people age. Longevity research focused exclusively on molecules misses a large part of the picture.
Measuring what actually matters
Another recurring theme was measurement. Which outcomes count? Lifespan is measurable, but healthy life expectancy, often called healthspan, the period of life spent in good functional health, is much harder to quantify. Participants called for greater investment in tools that capture function, wellbeing, and autonomy in later life more accurately.
This paper is not a research result in the conventional sense. It is more a map of the territory: what we know, what we lack, and where effort should go. For a rapidly growing field, that kind of structured reflection is rarely wasted.