Aubrey de Grey (LEV Foundation): "By 2040, we have at least 50% chance of bringing aging under complete medical control."

Aubrey de Grey, pioneering biogerontologist and founder of the LEV Foundation, has spent his career challenging the fatalism around aging. Speaking to us before his appearance at VDS 2025, he reflects on the scientific and social barriers that remain, the vital role of collaboration across sectors, and why cities like Valencia could become magnets for talent driving the longevity revolution.

 

What first inspired you to dedicate your career to the study of longevity, and how did that vision ultimately lead to the creation of the LEV Foundation and its most meaningful achievements so far?

My inspiration was not so much an inspiration as a horrific realisation – that hardly anyone cared about aging, and worse, that hardly any BIOLOGISTS cared about aging. I switched fields from computer science in the mid-1990s, and in 2000 I had the key insight that led to everything I’ve done since – that reversing aging is actually far easier than slowing it down. That led to my creation (with key cofounders) of the Methuselah Foundation, then SENS Research Foundation, and now LEV Foundation, because I was progressively able to convince people to donate to the necessary research.

 

From your perspective, what are the main scientific, ethical, or social obstacles still facing human life extension, and what role will regenerative medicine play in overcoming these challenges over the next 5 to 10 years?

There are no ethical obstacles, only psychological ones thinly disguised as ethical ones. The same can be said of social obstacles, such as concerns about overpopulation, because they are totally trivial to rebut but people cling to them anyway. So really the only obstacles are scientific, plus the one social obstacle of lack of political will to fund the necessary research. The scientific obstacles would better be termed technological ones, and they are too numerous to list here.

 

How can collaboration between science, startups, and corporations accelerate the development of large-scale healthy longevity?

I think you mean between universities, non-profits, startups and big pharma, yes? Such collaborations are absolutely vital, both for intellectual reasons and for financial reasons. The path from bench to bedside consists of a sequence of efforts that lean on different skill sets and appeal to different funding sources. It takes a village, as they say.

 

Valencia is one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in Europe and has been repeatedly ranked as the best city in the world to live. How could the city leverage these strengths to attract more scientific and entrepreneurial talent to the longevity sector?

Being a great place to live is insanely important. All manner of countries have become interested at the top level (i.e. government) in the longevity cause, and indeed in other biomedical areas, and have failed to attract scientific talent primarily because they insist on doing things in their own country and scientists just don’t want to live there.

 

On October 22–23, you’ll be speaking at the eighth edition of VDS, the international tech event organized by Startup Valencia. What impact do you hope to generate through your participation, in terms of strengthening the longevity innovation ecosystem among startups and corporates?

Every time I get the chance to speak to a new audience, I keep a totally open mind about what will come out of it: I do most of the listening and not too much of the talking, so that I can identify the most promising areas of collaboration – including ones that I hadn’t thought of. So I certainly hope to have an impact, and to strengthen Valencia’s longevity innovation ecosystem, but I deliberately don’t have any preconceptions about the specifics.

 

If you could fast-forward to 2040, what would you hope to see as the biggest breakthrough in human longevity?

Well, 2040 is the date by which I think we have at least a 50% chance of reaching longevity escape velocity, which is functionally equivalent to bringing aging under complete medical control. If so, well, we will have had a lot of breakthroughs by then!