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Meeting Report|Volume 18|pp 282—302

Toward actionable interventions in human aging (12th ARDD meeting, 2025)

Aleksandr Dekan1, Sierra Lore1,2, Ye Eun Yoon1, Aisyah Sjöholm3, Alexander Tyshkovskiy4, Alexey Terskikh5, Ana Maria Cuervo6, Anastasia Georgievskaya7, Andrea Heinz8, Andrei Seluanov9, Andrew Adams10, Andy P. Tsai11, Anna Murray12, Anne Brunet13, Anne Marije van Harten14, Avi Spier15, Ben Shenhar16, Bente Klarlund Pedersen17, Berthil Clasen10, Björn Schumacher18, Brian K. Kennedy19,20, Charlotte Suetta21, Christiane Volbracht22, Christoph Kuppe23, Clive Cookson24, Collin Y. Ewald25, Cristiana Banila26, Daisy Cai27, Dario Riccardo Valenzano28, Dudley W. Lamming29, Edward Rudnic30, Elias Bou Samra31, Emma Teeling32, Eric Verdin2, Evandro Fei Fang33, Fabrizio d’Adda di Fagagna34, Fedor Galkin3, Garri Zmudze35, Heinrich Jasper36, In Hwa Jang37, Jing-Dong Jackie Han38, Jamie Justice39, Jan H. J. Hoeijmakers18,40, Javier María Peralta Ramos41, Jean-Marc Lemaitre42, Jeroen Aerssens43, Joe Betts-LaCroix44, John C. Newman2,45, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte46, Kazuto Kawamura47, Kennedy Matsagas Schaal48, Kitsu Egerton49, Kotb Abdelmohsen50, Kristen Fortney51, Lars Hartenstein52, Laura Niedernhofer37, Lida Katsimpardi42, Lisa Melton53, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen54, Luigi Ferrucci50, Lykke Sylow55, Marco Demaria56, Marissa J. Schafer57, Marta Guasch-Ferré58,59, Martin Borch-Jensen60, Maxim Kholin61, Michael Antonov62, Michael Levitt63, Michela Deleidi64, Miriam Merad65, Morten Meldal66, Mourad Topors67, Murali Venkatesan68, Nathan K. LeBrasseur69, Niklas Anzinger70, Peter Fedichev61, Paul Kohlhaas71, Peter J. Mullen72, Priya Singhal73, Rafael de Cabo50, Riekelt H. Houtkooper74, Rusty Montgomery51, Ryan Smith75, Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson76, Sergey Jakimov35, Steve Horvath46, Steven Austad77, Thomas A. Rando78, Todd White79, Tom Zuber80, Tomaz Rozmaric81, Tony Wyss-Coray82, Tuomas Tammela83, Vadim N. Gladyshev4, Vanessa V. C. Sinatti84, Weilan Wang19,20, William Harborne85, Xiaodong Liu86, Xing Li Wang87, Yousin Suh88,89, Yuta Lee90, Zane Koch91, Alex Zhavoronkov2,3,92,93, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen1, Daniela Bakula1
  • 1Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 2Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA 94945, USA
  • 3Insilico Medicine AI, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • 4Division of Genetics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  • 5Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
  • 6Einstein Institute for Aging Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY 10461, USA
  • 7HautAI OU, Tallinn, Estonia
  • 8Department of Pharmacy, LEO Foundation Center for Cutaneous Drug Delivery, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 9Department of Biology and Medicine, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14609, USA
  • 10Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN 46225, USA
  • 11Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
  • 12Department of Clinical and Biomedical Science, Faculty of Health and Life Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
  • 13Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
  • 14Apollo Health Ventures, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
  • 15Novartis, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
  • 16Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
  • 17Centre for Physical Activity Research, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 18Institute 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
  • 19Centre for Healthy Longevity, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore
  • 20Healthy Longevity Translational Research Programme, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 21Department of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 22Neuroscience, H. Lundbeck A/S, Valby, Denmark
  • 23Division of Nephrology and Clinical Immunology, RWTH Aachen University, Medical Faculty, Aachen, Germany
  • 24Financial Times, London, UK
  • 25Novartis Biomedical Research, Diseases of Aging and Regenerative Medicine, Basel, Switzerland
  • 26Mitra Bio, Translation and Innovation Hub, London, UK
  • 27B Capital, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, USA
  • 28Leibniz Institute on Aging, Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), Jena, Germany
  • 29Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
  • 30Maxwell Biosciences, Austin, TX 78738, USA
  • 31L’Oréal Research and Innovation, Aulnay-sous-Bois, France
  • 32School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
  • 33Department of Clinical Molecular Biology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  • 34IFOM, Milan, Italy and IGM-CNR, Pavia, Italy
  • 35LongeVC, Washington, DC 20036, USA
  • 36Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
  • 37Masonic Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism (MIBAM), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
  • 38Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Beijing, China
  • 39XPRIZE Healthspan, Los Angeles, CA 90401, USA
  • 40Department of Molecular Biology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, and Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, ONCODE Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands
  • 41Department of Brain Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
  • 42Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy (IRMB), University of Montpellier, INSERM, Montpellier, France
  • 43Rejuvenate Biomed, Diepenbeek, Belgium
  • 44Retro Biosciences, Redwood City, CA 94115, USA
  • 45Division of Geriatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA
  • 46Altos Labs, San Diego Institute of Science, San Diego, CA 92121, USA
  • 47Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany
  • 48Rejuve Bio, Orange, CA 92867, USA
  • 49Baillie Gifford and Co., Edinburgh, UK
  • 50National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Baltimore, MD 21224, USA
  • 51BioAge Labs, Richmond, CA 94804, USA
  • 52McKinsey Health Institute, New York, NY 10007, USA
  • 53Nature Biotechnology, New York, NY 10013, USA
  • 54Novo Nordisk A/S, Måløv, Denmark
  • 55Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 56European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing (ERIBA), University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), University of Groningen (RUG), Groningen, The Netherlands
  • 57Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
  • 58Novo Nordisk Center for Basic Metabolic Research and Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 59Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 60Gordian Biotechnology, San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
  • 61Gero, Singapore, Singapore
  • 62Deep Origin, Palo Alto, CA 94080, USA
  • 63Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94304, USA
  • 64Institute Imagine, INSERM UMR1163, Paris, France
  • 65Precision Immunology Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
  • 66Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 67Repair Biotechnologies, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA
  • 68Danaher Ventures, Danaher Corporation, Washington, DC 20037, USA
  • 69Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
  • 70Infinita City, Prospera, Roatán, Honduras
  • 71Molecule AG, Basel, Switzerland
  • 72Department of Immunology and Immune Therapeutics, Keck School of Medicine, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
  • 73Biogen, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
  • 74Laboratory Genetic Metabolic Diseases, Amsterdam Gastroenterology, Endocrinology and Metabolism Institute, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 75TruDiagnostic Inc., Lexington, KY 40503, USA
  • 76Life Biosciences, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  • 77Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
  • 78UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
  • 79The Thalion Initiative, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  • 80Zuber Lawler, Los Angeles, CA 90067, USA
  • 81Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Traumatology, Vienna, Austria
  • 82Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94304, USA
  • 83Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA
  • 84Aptah Bio Inc., San Carlos, CA 94070, USA
  • 85LongGame Ventures, London, UK
  • 86School of Life Sciences, Westlake University and Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine, Hangzhou, China
  • 87Fosun Pharma, Shanghai, China
  • 88Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
  • 89Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
  • 90Accelerated Biosciences Corp., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
  • 91Program in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
  • 92Insilico Medicine US, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
  • 93Insilico Medicine Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Received: January 14, 2026Accepted: March 6, 2026Published: April 6, 2026

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.