The Growing Global Healthy Longevity Ecosystem

Abstract The geroscience field has started to grow exponentially in recent decades. This in turn has led to a rapidly emerging global ecosystem of players and nodes that has radiated out into fields from clinical investigation to medical practice to capital markets and startup activity to consumer-facing goods and services, regulations, laws and policies and the general wellness-conscious public. These are still early days, and there is uncertainty and a lack of awareness about the shape and activities of this rapidly growing and evolving community. This presentation will attempt a high-level survey of the current landscape in the hope of promoting awareness and collaborations among diverse, multiple initiatives that can accelerate the field.


THE NEW FACES AND NEW PLACES OF GEROSCIENCE Chair: Felipe Sierra
The field of geroscience is rapidly evolving, as well as expanding worldwide. The Program will highlight new approaches and players in the field. Notably, geroscience was initiated as an effort to improve recognition of the role played by basic aging biology in our efforts to improve the health of older adults. Substantial recognition by multiple players of that role of basic aging biology have resulted in significant interest on the part of clinicians and translational biology practitioners. The program will highlight examples of hand-picked efforts in industry and academia, both in the US and in Europe, and will bring into the same stage researchers interested in the various facets of geroscience, from basic biology, translation, clinical and, ultimately, industry viewpoints. The Inspire project of the Toulouse Hospital System is a comprehensive approach to health care in older adults, focused on maintenance of health and physical function. At the core of the project are human, mouse and killifish cohorts, which in the case of humans, is comprised of 1,000 subjects of ages 20 and above, which are followed for a total of 10 years, both via visits to the clinic, and electronic follow-up via the ICOPE app. At recruitment they are stratified as robust, pre-frail or frail according to Fried's criteria, and then followed for loss of Intrinsic Capacities, as defined by WHO. A parallel cohort of Swiss mice with enhanced (exercise) and decreased (high fat diet) health will be used to measure concordant parameters. The project is generating a significant biorepository that is being used to pursue research in several areas where Toulouse has a significant research strength.

THE RISE AND THE DEATH OF SENESCENT CELLS: FROM MECHANISMS TO INTERVENTIONS Marco Demaria, Medical Faculty, Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Aging is at the root of age-related diseases and therapies targeting basic age-associated mechanisms have the potential to extend healthy lifespan. A common feature of older organisms is the accumulation of senescent cells -cells that have irreversibly lost the capacity to undergo replication. Senescent cells are characterized by an irreversible cell cycle arrest and by the Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype (SASP), which include many tissue remodeling and pro-inflammatory factors. Senescent cells are intermittently present during embryogenesis and in young organisms. On the contrary senescent cells accumulate and persist in aging tissues. Significantly, these persistent senescent cells can drive low-grade chronic inflammation, and their genetic or pharmacological elimination is sufficient to delay a number of diseases and to improve health span. Here, I will discuss the mechanisms by which senescent cells can promote tissue aging and dysfunction and the potential of targeting senescent cells to delay human aging.

THE GROWING GLOBAL HEALTHY LONGEVITY ECOSYSTEM Thomas Seoh, Kitalys Institute, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
The geroscience field has started to grow exponentially in recent decades. This in turn has led to a rapidly emerging global ecosystem of players and nodes that has radiated out into fields from clinical investigation to medical practice to capital markets and startup activity to consumer-facing goods and services, regulations, laws and policies and the general wellness-conscious public. These are still early days, and there is uncertainty and a lack of awareness about the shape and activities of this rapidly growing and evolving community. This presentation will attempt a high-level survey of the current landscape in the hope of promoting awareness and collaborations among diverse, multiple initiatives that can accelerate the field.

TRANSLATIONAL GEROSCIENCE: HUMAN MODELS OF HEALTHY AGING AND LONGEVITY Sofiya Milman, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, United States
While insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is a wellestablished modulator of aging and longevity in model organisms, its role in humans is less well understood. Previous ambiguities in part have been attributed to cohort characteristics and unawareness of interactions between age and IGF-1. Centenarians have emerged as an ideal model of healthy aging because they delay the onset of age-related diseases and often remain disease free for the duration of their lifespan. In cohorts of centenarians and generally healthy older adults, we demonstrated that reduced IGF-1 is associated with extended lifespan and health-span. Additionally, we confirmed that IGF-1 interacts with age to modify risk in a manner consistent with antagonistic pleiotropy: younger individuals with high IGF-1 are protected from dementia, vascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis, while older individuals do not exhibit IGF-1-associated protection from disease. These findings offer evidence for IGF-1 modulating health-span and lifespan in humans.

POLICY SERIES: THE OLDER AMERICANS ACT, THE AGING NETWORK, AND THE PANDEMIC Chair: Brian Lindberg
This session provides insights into how the pandemic challenged the capabilities and ingenuity of the Older Americans Act (OAA) programs and the aging network and what it means for in-home and community aging services now and in the future. Speakers will include key aging network stakeholders, who will discuss the overnight evolution of programs serving often isolated older adults.

OLDER AMERICANS ACT MEALS PROGRAMS: RESPONDING TO THE PANDEMIC Katie Jantzi, Meals on Wheels America, Arlington, Virginia, United States
This session provides insights into how the pandemic challenged the capabilities and ingenuity of the Older Americans Act (OAA) programs and the aging network. Speakers will include key aging network stakeholders, who will discuss the overnight evolution of programs serving often isolated older adults.

OLDER AMERICANS ACT SUPPORTS AND SERVICES: ADAPTING TO THE PANDEMIC Amy Gotwals, USAging, Washington, District of Columbia, United States
This session provides insights into how the pandemic challenged the capabilities and ingenuity of the Older Americans Act (OAA) programs and the aging network. Speakers will include key aging network stakeholders, who will discuss the overnight evolution of programs serving often isolated older adults.

THE TIES THAT BIND: HOW ONLINE AND OFFLINE INTERACTIONS AFFECT SOCIAL SUPPORT AND QUALITY OF LIFE FOR OLDER ADULTS Chair: Shelia Cotten
Though a digital divide still exists, older adults are increasingly using a range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) -smartphones, apps, tablets, and computers -to communicate and engage with social ties. This symposium focuses on modalities of interaction -whether online or offline -that older adults use to interact with social ties. The research projects detailed examine the frequency of different interaction modalities, as well as impacts of these interaction modalities on older adults' perceptions of social support and quality of life. Kadylak and colleagues focus on social robots and how older adults may engage with this evolving technology to improve social engagement and aging in place. Kim and Fingerman investigate whether daily social media use is associated with same-day negative or positive mood in later life. Xie and colleagues examine older adults' patterns of both online and offline social interaction during COVID-19, and how older adults perceive these interactions. Schuster and Cotten, using a national sample of individuals aged 65 and older, examine whether social media use may be related to a range of quality of life indicators. Each of these studies provides additional insights into the ways through which older adults interact and communicate with social ties, and potential impacts of the different ways through which they interact, which may provide insights into groups seeking to increase social engagement among older adults in general and during times when social isolation may be exacerbated due to societal stressors, such as pandemics.