The start of an eight day Life Sciences marathon event in Milan - the Longevity Summit 2025

Excited to have met Prof. and Father Alberto Carrara at the Milano Longevity Summit, one of the best events of its kind in the world, discussing trends and related ground-breaking medical and scientific innovations, as well as promoting healthy aging and open freely to the wider public (which other similar events in other countries don’t do).

Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd March were two days packed with fantastic presentations from high-caliber national and international experts, including two Nobel prize winners, Shinya Yamanaka (who discovered that mature cells can be reprogrammed to induce pluripotent stem cells) and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (who mapped the structure and function of ribosomes which is also used in the production of antibiotics). There were other illustrious national and international professors and scientists such as John Wong, Medical Sciences Prof., Exec. Director and Sr. Advisor of Centre for Population Health, National University of Singapore; Eileen Crimmins, AARP Prof. of Gerontology, University of Southern California; Naomi Habib, a Neuroscientist who researches cognitive decline and resilience, Prof. Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Morten Lorenzen from the Danish Brain Injury Association, and The Danish Brain Council, and many others, along with key business figures from Lundbeck, Sanofi, Quadrivio Group etc.

It was truly inspiring and humbling listening to some of these eminent people speak and I couldn’t possibly summarise here everything that was said. But I would just want to draw attention to some key aspects that concern all of us, such as the fact that the world population is aging fast (and not just in Japan and Italy, the top two aging countries in the world) and cash-strapped governments around the world need new solutions to ensure everyone’s health and wellbeing.

So far science was really good at expanding lifespan in the developed world (in Italy people went from 45 years in 1910 to over 83 years on average in 2020), but not necessarily health-span (chronic diseases still afflict us, even in middle age). But scientists are tinkering with solutions to improve healthspan as well…from RNA-sequencing of single brain cells to building cellular maps of aging brains to understand the dynamics of cellular change with the progression of disease and the protective mechanisms of super-agers (who seem to have unique glial cells) and

ultimately to see if most of us can become super-agers and control our aging path? Many scientists and entrepreneurs are optimistic – from improving biological regulation functions to interventions such as gerotherapeutics (e.g. metformin, SGLT-2 inhibitors), to personalised nutrition, to behavioural and lifestyle changes – in fact Prof. of Epigenetics Valentina Bollati (and not only) showed how our lifestyles choices, experiences and the environment can fundamentally alter gene expression and our DNA heritage.

A key takeway is that we are not alone in this – our choices also depend on the environment and governments have an active role to play in creating more or less vibrant communities and built environments (as prof. John Wong showed with examples from Singapore).

The Summit events last until the 29th March and today from 4pm to 7pm the discussions continue in Vatican – they can also be followed online live thanks to IINBE (International Institute of Neurobioethics) and Prof. Alberto Carrara, President of IINBE and an eminent Prof. of Neuroscience, Ethics and Philosophy at APRA, European University of Rome and UNESCO.

Italy's population by age and gender in 2024

(Bocconi University, 2024 UN DESA)