Aging is a major risk factor for chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. While industrialization and modern medicine have extended average life expectancy in the past century, this progress has led to an epidemic of age-related diseases, which contributes to the global burden of chronic illness. Understanding the biological mechanisms underlying aging is key to developing interventions for preventing, detecting, diagnosing, and treating age-related diseases, ultimately improving not just lifespan but also years lived in good health. 

Current Funding Efforts 

Despite its critical importance, fundamental aging research remains underfunded. While government agencies have allocated funding to support aging research, a significant portion of that funding is earmarked for specific disease areas rather than being exclusively focused on understanding the basis of aging itself. On the other hand, aging-focused biotech companies such as Altos Labs and Calico Life Sciences are advancing aging-related therapeutics and their efforts often rely on translational research rather than fundamental discovery. Strategic investments in fundamental research could unlock our understanding of health span and aid in the development of therapies for illnesses contributing to increased age-related mortality and impairment for a significant population. 

The recognition of this funding gap has motivated some philanthropic funders to invest in research aimed at comprehending the biological aspects of healthy aging. Notable examples include:

• The Amaranth Foundation, which supports aging research with an emphasis on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging. 
• The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, which, through the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, pioneered a unique multi-university partnership to study the biological principles that optimize human neuromuscular capacity, with the aim of improving health and well-being across the lifespan. 
• The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, which is at the forefront of funding efforts in basic science aging research and focuses on molecular interventions and improving the quality of life for the aging population. 
• The Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB), which focuses specifically on brain aging and is dedicated to understanding how the brain changes with age and whether those changes can be slowed or reversed.

These efforts, while significant, still leave vast opportunities for additional investment. Aging research remains an area where increased funding could yield groundbreaking discoveries. 

The Next Frontier 

Our understanding of aging has evolved from a simplistic inevitable process with a few contributing factors to a complex phenomenon influenced by multiple factors at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels. Current studies focus on understanding aging at a molecular and cellular level. However, we see an opportunity for increased funding to help us understand how these molecular and cellular changes translate to real-world health benefits. Here are some of the key areas of aging research that hold promise: 

• Biomarkers of Aging: Advancements in epigenetic, cellular, and blood-based biomarkers that can identify aging trajectories and predict disease onset. 
• Stress and Cellular Deregulation: Understanding how stress at the cellular level contributes to organismal decline and accelerates aging processes. 
• Senescence Cells: Investigating the role of senescent cells in both the development and exacerbation of age-related diseases. 
• Immune System and Inflammation: Studying changes in immune function and inflammation as critical factors in aging and the development of related diseases. 
• Preventative Interventions: Exploring the role of diet, supplements, and lifestyle factors, such as physical activity, in promoting healthy aging and longevity. 

By focusing on these emerging research areas, we can better understand aging as a complex biological process and develop therapies to help people live longer, healthier lives. 

About the Underfunded Areas in the Research Enterprise Series 

The Science Philanthropy Alliance aims to increase philanthropic support for basic scientific research. Drawing on the expertise of its philanthropic advising team, distinguished external science advisors and a membership base of leading science funders, the Alliance provides curated advising services and learning opportunities to help philanthropists expand the world’s knowledge and lay the scientific groundwork for lifesaving, economy-changing breakthroughs. This post is part of a series on underfunded areas where philanthropy has the opportunity to catalyze scientific research.

How We Define Underfunded:

Our definition of underfunded has three aspects and one or more can be used to characterize a field or area of research as such: 

• Funding is insufficient for the need, i.e. the amount of funding is too small for the scope of the problem. 
• Ineligible for other sources of funding, e.g. too risky for public money or other funding sources, or not commercially viable. 
• High potential impact of funding; a breakthrough discovery with highly significant implications for a question or field.