On November 12th, 2025, Nature Index 2025: Ageing highlighted two articles featuring insights from Scientific Director Steven N. Austad, PhD; Board Member Richard G.A. Faragher, PhD; and Irving S. Wright Award recipient S. Jay Olshansky, PhD.
Dr. Austad and Olshansky called upon their research into exceptional longevity, highlighting the friendly wager between Dr. Austad and Dr. Olshansky on the limits of human lifespan, specifically whether anyone born before 2001 will reach the age of 150.
Dr. Faragher discussed the considerations of labeling aging as a disease, emphasizing the potential this perspective could have in developing therapeutics to treat or delay age-related diseases and extend healthspan.
In addition to being AFAR’s Scientific Director, Dr. Austad is the 2011 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction winner and the Inaugural George M. Martin Award winner. He is the founding director of UAB’s Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, and co-director of the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research, as well as the Co-Principal Investigator of the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center.
Dr. Faragher is an AFAR Board member and previously served as the Chair of both the British Society for Research on Ageing and the International Association of Biomedical Gerontology He is a Professor of Biogerontology at the University of Brighton.
Dr. Olshansky is the 2016 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction winner, a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Lapetus Solutions, Inc.
See the full index here.
Read “Could humans live to 150? Why some researchers think we’re on the cusp of a major longevity breakthrough” here.
Read “Is ageing a disease? The debate that could reshape medicine” here.
For more insights watch our webinar, “How Realistic is a 100-Year Life Expectancy and Why Does it Matter?” featuring Dr. Austad in dialogue with Dr. Olshansky and economist Andrew J. Scott, DPhil, here.
