A New Longevity Roadmap : Scientists Define 100 Critical Questions to Solve Aging

A landmark project has created a new guide for aging research, revealing where the field is focused and, more importantly, where the biggest opportunities for breakthroughs may lie.

Imagine we had a map to guide the entire field of longevity research. A new global initiative, led by João Pedro de Magalhães’s team at the University of Birmingham and co-organized with the Thalion Initiative, has just created that. Inspired by Bernard Strehler's foundational work from nearly 50 years ago, this initiative has produced a curated list of 100 essential questions designed to accelerate our understanding of aging and guide the next generation of research. The full list is available on a new interactive website, longevityknowledge.app.

How They Built the Map

To identify these 100 "open problems," the team, spearheaded by researcher João Pedro de Magalhães, combined old-school collaboration with modern technology. First, they gathered 290 questions from scientists and the public through online submissions and a dedicated workshop hosted in collaboration with the Thalion Initiative. Next, using advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) models like PubMedBERT, the team analyzed over 389,000 scientific articles published since 1963. This allowed them to quantify how extensively each question has already been studied.

Revealing the Field's Hot Spots and Blind Spots

The analysis uncovered a dramatic imbalance in research focus. The top 20 most-studied questions, including "Why do we age?" and "Does somatic mutation accumulation cause ageing?”, were linked to over 69,000 articles, representing **40.3%**of the total research analyzed. In stark contrast, the bottom 20 questions accounted for just 341 articles, or 0.2% of the literature. These under-explored areas include novel therapeutic approaches and highly specific mechanisms, such as:

• How can we break through the current human lifespan ceiling of 122 years?

• Could blood clean-up be used to target aging processes?

• How can we measure the extent and pace of changes in the homeodynamic space during aging?

From Observation to Intervention

This project follows in the spirit of a foundational list of questions posed in 1977 by Bernard Strehler, a pioneer in aging research. Many of Strehler's questions about topics like genetics, mitochondria, and the immune system's role in aging are still being investigated today. However, the new roadmap shows how much the field has evolved. The modern list places a strong emphasis on developing and evaluating interventions. Questions surrounding senolytics, partial reprogramming, and the establishment of reliable biomarkers like epigenetic clocks are now at the forefront, reflecting a shift from simply characterizing aging to actively trying to modulate it.

Why It Matters for Longevity

This project provides an invaluable tool for focusing the entire field. For researchers, it highlights under-explored areas ripe for discovery. For funders and biotech companies, it offers a data-driven guide to where investment could have the most impact. By systematically identifying these knowledge gaps, the roadmap can help prevent redundant research and steer efforts toward solving the most critical, unanswered questions that stand in the way of extending healthy human lifespan.

Future Thoughts

The open-access website invites global collaboration, ensuring it remains a living guide that evolves with science. The ultimate goal is to foster a more coordinated, efficient, and impactful research ecosystem. As we begin to answer some of these 100 questions, new, more complex questions will undoubtedly arise, continuing the cycle of discovery and pushing the frontiers of what's possible in human longevity.