AFAR Experts in the News: Nineteen AFAR-affiliated experts on the past, present, and future of aging research for Nature Aging fifth anniversary issue

On January 21^st, 2026, the special fifth anniversary issue of Nature Aging featured a Q&A on the past, present, and future of aging research featuring nineteen AFAR-affiliated experts.

Among the questions explored:

• Is there one advance in aging or age-related disease research from the past 5 to 10 years that changed how you think about the field, and why?
• The field of aging is very broad, and covers biology, clinical, public health, and social sciences. Has your work or thinking been inspired by approaches or findings from separate disciplines?
• Which single shared resource (for example, dataset, biobank, model, or tool) would most accelerate progress in your field?
• Where do you see your field heading in the next 5 to 10 years?

AFAR Scientific Director Steven N. Austad, PhD, and President Thomas A. Rando, MD, PhD, both lent insights.

Board Member and multiple grantee Nir Barzilai, MD, and Board President Emeritus John W. Rowe, MD, also participated.

AFAR’s Scientific Awards of Distinction recipients were well represented, including Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research recipients Daniel W. Belsky, PhD; Bérénice Benayoun, PhD; and Ming Xu, PhD, as well as Irving S. Wright Award recipient and grantee David Sinclair, PhD, AO.

AFAR is proud that many of our grantees were also featured, including: Anne Brunet, PhD; Dena Dubal, MD, PhD; Matt Kaeberlein, PhD; Dudley Lamming, PhD; Linda Partridge, DPhil; Felipe Sierra, PhD, and Ashley E. Webb, PhD, as well as Vera Gorbunova, PhD, who also heads the Upstate New York Nathan Schock Center, part of the Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Biology of Aging Coordinating Center that AFAR helps lead.

Read the full Q&A “Past, present and future perspectives on the science of aging” here.