AFAR News: Scholar-in-Residence Raiany Romanni-Klein, PhD, launches interactive Silverlinings.bio tool on the ROI of R&D in Geroscience

AFAR is pleased to announce the release of Silverlinings.bio, an interactive report and simulation tool developed by AFAR Scholar-in-Residence Raiany Romanni-Klein, PhD.

Dr. Romanni-Klein spent the last two years working with a team of economists from Harvard to the Abundance Institute and the University of Southern Carolina to develop an interactive simulation tool with returns on investments (ROI) for specific research & development (R&D) advancements in aging science—from slowing ovarian aging to brain aging to running what is likely to be the first-ever clinical trial with aging as an endpoint.

On the Silver Linings site, users can input their own timelines and assumptions for specific scientific breakthroughs, then see the ROI in terms of US lives saved & GDP growth.

Through interactive data and illustrations by acclaimed design firm Pentagram,

SilverLinings explores a wide range of the economic gains and social returns of advancing geroscience, such as:

• How could small advancements in the science of aging change U.S. GDP and population growth?
• What would be the economic and demographic value of making 41 the new 40, or 65 the new 60?
• How many lives could we create or save if we could slow reproductive or brain aging by just 1 year?
• What would billions of healthier hours be worth to the economy?
• And more.

For this project, Dr. Romanni-Klein interviewed 102 scientists to map expected timelines for specific advancements in aging science; funding amounts required; and to document research opportunities with low commercial incentives but potential for high social and/or economic returns. Among the scientists and stakeholders who lent insights were AFAR President Tom Rando, MD, PhD; Board members Nir Barzilai, MD, Alex Coville, PhD, and Michael Ringel, JD, PhD; as well as AFAR grantees Anne Brunet, PhD, Kristen Fortney, PhD, Jennifer Garrison, PhD, Vera Gorbunova, PhD, and Matthew Kaeberlein, PhD. AFAR Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research recipients Daniel Belsky, PhD, and Jamie Justice, PhD, also participated.

"My hope is for Silverlinings.bio to be used to connect scientists to economists, to policy makers, to even taxpayers. Scientists can’t be the only group advocating for projects and ideas that will impact everyone," Dr. Romanni-Klein shares in a related AFAR Ask the Expert Interview.

Explore Silverlinings.bio here.

Read Dr. Romanni-Klein's Ask the Expert Interview here.