Meeting Report Volume 18 pp 282—302
Toward actionable interventions in human aging (12th ARDD meeting, 2025)
- 1 Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 2 Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA 94945, USA
- 3 Insilico Medicine AI, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- 4 Division of Genetics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- 5 Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
- 6 Einstein Institute for Aging Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY 10461, USA
- 7 HautAI OU, Tallinn, Estonia
- 8 Department of Pharmacy, LEO Foundation Center for Cutaneous Drug Delivery, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 9 Department of Biology and Medicine, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14609, USA
- 10 Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN 46225, USA
- 11 Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- 12 Department of Clinical and Biomedical Science, Faculty of Health and Life Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
- 13 Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- 14 Apollo Health Ventures, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
- 15 Novartis, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- 16 Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
- 17 Centre for Physical Activity Research, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 18 Institute for Genome Stability in Ageing and Disease, Cologne Cluster of Excellence on Aging and Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University and University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
- 19 Centre for Healthy Longevity, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore
- 20 Healthy Longevity Translational Research Programme, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
- 21 Department of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 22 Neuroscience, H. Lundbeck A/S, Valby, Denmark
- 23 Division of Nephrology and Clinical Immunology, RWTH Aachen University, Medical Faculty, Aachen, Germany
- 24 Financial Times, London, UK
- 25 Novartis Biomedical Research, Diseases of Aging and Regenerative Medicine, Basel, Switzerland
- 26 Mitra Bio, Translation and Innovation Hub, London, UK
- 27 B Capital, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, USA
- 28 Leibniz Institute on Aging, Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), Jena, Germany
- 29 Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
- 30 Maxwell Biosciences, Austin, TX 78738, USA
- 31 L’Oréal Research and Innovation, Aulnay-sous-Bois, France
- 32 School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- 33 Department of Clinical Molecular Biology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 34 IFOM, Milan, Italy and IGM-CNR, Pavia, Italy
- 35 LongeVC, Washington, DC 20036, USA
- 36 Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
- 37 Masonic Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism (MIBAM), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
- 38 Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Beijing, China
- 39 XPRIZE Healthspan, Los Angeles, CA 90401, USA
- 40 Department of Molecular Biology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, and Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, ONCODE Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- 41 Department of Brain Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
- 42 Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy (IRMB), University of Montpellier, INSERM, Montpellier, France
- 43 Rejuvenate Biomed, Diepenbeek, Belgium
- 44 Retro Biosciences, Redwood City, CA 94115, USA
- 45 Division of Geriatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA
- 46 Altos Labs, San Diego Institute of Science, San Diego, CA 92121, USA
- 47 Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany
- 48 Rejuve Bio, Orange, CA 92867, USA
- 49 Baillie Gifford and Co., Edinburgh, UK
- 50 National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Baltimore, MD 21224, USA
- 51 BioAge Labs, Richmond, CA 94804, USA
- 52 McKinsey Health Institute, New York, NY 10007, USA
- 53 Nature Biotechnology, New York, NY 10013, USA
- 54 Novo Nordisk A/S, Måløv, Denmark
- 55 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 56 European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing (ERIBA), University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), University of Groningen (RUG), Groningen, The Netherlands
- 57 Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
- 58 Novo Nordisk Center for Basic Metabolic Research and Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 59 Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 60 Gordian Biotechnology, San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
- 61 Gero, Singapore, Singapore
- 62 Deep Origin, Palo Alto, CA 94080, USA
- 63 Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94304, USA
- 64 Institute Imagine, INSERM UMR1163, Paris, France
- 65 Precision Immunology Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
- 66 Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 67 Repair Biotechnologies, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA
- 68 Danaher Ventures, Danaher Corporation, Washington, DC 20037, USA
- 69 Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
- 70 Infinita City, Prospera, Roatán, Honduras
- 71 Molecule AG, Basel, Switzerland
- 72 Department of Immunology and Immune Therapeutics, Keck School of Medicine, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
- 73 Biogen, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- 74 Laboratory Genetic Metabolic Diseases, Amsterdam Gastroenterology, Endocrinology and Metabolism Institute, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 75 TruDiagnostic Inc., Lexington, KY 40503, USA
- 76 Life Biosciences, Boston, MA 02116, USA
- 77 Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
- 78 UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
- 79 The Thalion Initiative, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- 80 Zuber Lawler, Los Angeles, CA 90067, USA
- 81 Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Traumatology, Vienna, Austria
- 82 Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94304, USA
- 83 Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA
- 84 Aptah Bio Inc., San Carlos, CA 94070, USA
- 85 LongGame Ventures, London, UK
- 86 School of Life Sciences, Westlake University and Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine, Hangzhou, China
- 87 Fosun Pharma, Shanghai, China
- 88 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
- 89 Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
- 90 Accelerated Biosciences Corp., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- 91 Program in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
- 92 Insilico Medicine US, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- 93 Insilico Medicine Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Received: January 14, 2026 Accepted: March 6, 2026 Published: April 6, 2026
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206368How to Cite
Copyright: © 2026 Dekan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The 12th Aging Research and Drug Discovery (ARDD) meeting convened at the University of Copenhagen, presenting a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in the biology of aging. A central theme across sessions was the field’s gradual shift from descriptive, correlational studies to mechanistic understandings enabling the engineering of personalized therapeutic interventions aimed at extending human healthspan. Key discussions highlighted the convergence of multiple disciplines. Presentations detailed how fundamental biological insights are being integrated with artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms for accelerated target identification and drug development. Furthermore, the development and application of novel preclinical research models were presented as critical for improving the translational pipeline to human clinical trials. Scientific discourse has advanced from cataloging the established hallmarks of aging to identifying and modulating the specific molecular mechanisms that regulate them. This focus is predicated on the hypothesis that aging is not solely a result of stochastic damage accumulation but may be a tractable, modifiable, and potentially reversible biological process amenable to intervention. This report summarizes the principal research directions and conceptual frameworks presented at the conference.