How Is the Development of Science and Technology Changing Our Views on the Processes of Aging and Longevity?

On Thursday, May 26, ASEF organized a popular science lecture within ASEF Speaker Series by dr. Eneja Kuščar, co-founder of ACIES BIO d.o.o., Comet Therapeutics Inc. in Longevize B.V.

In the introductory part of the lecture, different views on the processes of aging and longevity were opened. On the one hand, very interesting thoughts on the possibility of prolonging life with the help of science and technology, on the other hand, the same coin raises questions such as: What will happen if we actually start prolonging people’s lives? How will we manage to have more and more of us in the world? What does this mean for the very sustainability of practices and lives? In the context of sustainability, it was emphasized that the focus should be on health and prevention. The aging processes are very complex.

Dr. Kuščer presented how these processes have been attempted to be explained over time and what impact the development of science and technology has had on the explanatory power. In addition to the development of other scientific disciplines, he pointed out the development of informatics, which is capable of computer processing enormous amounts of data of complex processes and finding connections between different processes, which gave us a starting point for a better understanding of aging. During the lecture, the lecturer explained the main pillars of aging, in relation to epigenetics, senescence, mitochondria, microbiomes and others that are important in aging. He pointed out that the aging process is very heterogeneous, and that environmental factors also have a significant impact on it.

The genome has always been a mystery. In the last 20 years, the development of science and technology has progressed so much that we are now at a stage where a real revolution is actually taking place. From the latter point of view, a very bright future will also have to be philosophically questioned, where we still have a lot of work to do.

The event, which this time took place in a hybrid form, namely in the Prešeren Hall at SAZU and through Zoom, was moderated by Jure Rebselj, ASEF Junior Fellow 2022 Generation.