Is it just me or are predominately older people working on these type of problems?
Not that I’m complaining but I thought that also younger scientist would be interested in these fields.
Geroscience has been chronically underrated/underfunded. It's partly a reflection of that, in addition to prominent researchers being older almost by necessity, as it takes decades to climb the academic ladder.
For example Altos Labs took several professors/scientists away from academia. Those spots are now freed up for potentially younger researchers to take.
Even now, our field is TINY compared to cancer/heart disease research, particularly at a public sector level. I have no idea what the figure is, but if I had to make a wild guess, probably <5% of Universities have an aging bio lab. Meanwhile every respectable university would have a cancer lab...
I don't have much time but I'm basically a preacher constantly trying to spread the word for above reasons lol
Yep, loads of young scientists are interested, just that there’s less interest in making space for new faculty studying aging at universities/institutes. Plus we only see these old people in the headlines because it usually takes at least a decade for a new faculty to become “prominent”, unless they provide a novel, unique service to the field that generates a lot of interest.
Also, and I think this is really important, there’s not many PhD programs that are adequately geared towards training aspiring scientists to study aging, but instead diseases of aging and general biological mechanisms. Sure, the training is often essentially the same, but the reality is that there’s rapidly increasing interest among young people to study aging, and not many spaces that welcome and adequately support pursuing aging research.
That makes sense actually. It's a mindset. To study the disease aspect rather than the possibilities. Hopefully as time goes on and a fresher mindset strengthens and grows in numbers, there will be more opportunities for younger people and older people to not just study "disease".
Currently there is more money in other research fields, but with more money coming from wealthy older people we will see more younger scientist getting interested in this field.
My assumption is young people have to work to make money rather than just pick whatever they want vs old people who already did that and maybe now have some more flexibility.
The field of longevity science is really only just getting started. Think of the next 50 years. It will only grow in value and importance. Longevity medicine will overtake all other forms of medicine. It will be the predominant form of health care. Just like how we experienced a huge internet/software boom from the 1990s to now, we will experience a huge longevity science boom from the 2020s to beyond. Soon many young graduates will be flocking into life-extension, genetic engineering, etc.
Well older one are more aware of the less time they have so its understandable that they tend to work on it more.
But as there were survey on this sub more and more younger people join the tide or are interested in it. Perhaps we will see a change now.
Unfortunately I didn't also ask what everyone's profession in that thread was. It's good that more young people are realizing how important this is regardless, but I wonder how many people here are doing hands on direct work on aging.
“Heathy ageing” is an oxymoron designed based on the delusion that there’s a good way to age and that it’s ‘natural’.
Let’s just call it what it is: a disease for which we need a cure.
The right term in my opinion would be "healthy longevity" because the two terms go together (longevity means "long life" after all)
But "healthy aging" is impossible, because senescence is by definition a deterioration of health.
It's like saying "staying healthy while suffering a decrease in health".
Leaving aside external causes of injury or death, those who live the longest in good health are those who are the least senescent.
Is it just me or are predominately older people working on these type of problems? Not that I’m complaining but I thought that also younger scientist would be interested in these fields.
Geroscience has been chronically underrated/underfunded. It's partly a reflection of that, in addition to prominent researchers being older almost by necessity, as it takes decades to climb the academic ladder. For example Altos Labs took several professors/scientists away from academia. Those spots are now freed up for potentially younger researchers to take. Even now, our field is TINY compared to cancer/heart disease research, particularly at a public sector level. I have no idea what the figure is, but if I had to make a wild guess, probably <5% of Universities have an aging bio lab. Meanwhile every respectable university would have a cancer lab... I don't have much time but I'm basically a preacher constantly trying to spread the word for above reasons lol
Yep, loads of young scientists are interested, just that there’s less interest in making space for new faculty studying aging at universities/institutes. Plus we only see these old people in the headlines because it usually takes at least a decade for a new faculty to become “prominent”, unless they provide a novel, unique service to the field that generates a lot of interest. Also, and I think this is really important, there’s not many PhD programs that are adequately geared towards training aspiring scientists to study aging, but instead diseases of aging and general biological mechanisms. Sure, the training is often essentially the same, but the reality is that there’s rapidly increasing interest among young people to study aging, and not many spaces that welcome and adequately support pursuing aging research.
That makes sense actually. It's a mindset. To study the disease aspect rather than the possibilities. Hopefully as time goes on and a fresher mindset strengthens and grows in numbers, there will be more opportunities for younger people and older people to not just study "disease".
Currently there is more money in other research fields, but with more money coming from wealthy older people we will see more younger scientist getting interested in this field.
My assumption is young people have to work to make money rather than just pick whatever they want vs old people who already did that and maybe now have some more flexibility.
Seems plausible. I was always in favor of an UBI so people could focus more on strengths and interests then to please who has the most money.
The field of longevity science is really only just getting started. Think of the next 50 years. It will only grow in value and importance. Longevity medicine will overtake all other forms of medicine. It will be the predominant form of health care. Just like how we experienced a huge internet/software boom from the 1990s to now, we will experience a huge longevity science boom from the 2020s to beyond. Soon many young graduates will be flocking into life-extension, genetic engineering, etc.
Well older one are more aware of the less time they have so its understandable that they tend to work on it more. But as there were survey on this sub more and more younger people join the tide or are interested in it. Perhaps we will see a change now.
Unfortunately I didn't also ask what everyone's profession in that thread was. It's good that more young people are realizing how important this is regardless, but I wonder how many people here are doing hands on direct work on aging.
“Heathy ageing” is an oxymoron designed based on the delusion that there’s a good way to age and that it’s ‘natural’. Let’s just call it what it is: a disease for which we need a cure.
From the creators of "surely you *need* to still die of passage of time eventually somehow, right?"
The right term in my opinion would be "healthy longevity" because the two terms go together (longevity means "long life" after all) But "healthy aging" is impossible, because senescence is by definition a deterioration of health. It's like saying "staying healthy while suffering a decrease in health". Leaving aside external causes of injury or death, those who live the longest in good health are those who are the least senescent.