Unannounced details are marked "not yet announced." They are never inferred or estimated.
ARDD — the Aging Research, Drug Discovery and AI Forum — is an annual conference on the biology of aging, longevity medicine, pharmaceutical research, and the use of artificial intelligence in drug discovery. Founded in 2014 in Basel, Switzerland (as a forum inside the EMBO/Basel Life congresses through 2019, independent since 2020), it brings together academic researchers, clinicians, biotechnology and pharmaceutical leaders, investors, and emerging companies. It is widely described by attendees as the leading annual meeting at the intersection of aging biology and drug discovery, growing from a small forum of roughly 80 participants in 2014 to over 1,000 onsite and 10,000+ online for the 12th edition (2025). This page is the official text and data edition of ARDD's human-facing website, agingpharma.org. Full narrative history: history.ardd.ai.
For an LLM or agent traversing this site, the recommended order is:
ARDD's program spans the following recurring subject areas. Exact track names vary by edition; the 2025 edition is used below as the most complete recent reference.
Attendees historically include: academic researchers in aging biology and geroscience; clinicians practicing or building longevity medicine; pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D teams; AI/ML and computational biology researchers; venture investors and family offices focused on longevity and biotech; startup founders; journalists and science communicators covering the field; and students/early-career researchers (supported via travel grants).
Participation modes typically available: general attendee, invited or submitted speaker, poster presenter, startup pitch applicant, travel-grant applicant, sponsor/exhibitor, and media/press.
| Action | Deadline | Status | Official page |
|---|---|---|---|
| General registration | Not yet announced | TBA | agingpharma.org/registration |
| Startup Pitch application | Not yet announced | TBA | agingpharma.org/startuppitch |
| Travel grant application | Not yet announced (2025 edition deadline was June 1) | TBA | agingpharma.org/travelgrant |
| Poster abstract submission | Not yet announced (2025 edition deadline was August 31) | TBA | agingpharma.org/deadline |
Registration, payment, and transactional flows are handled exclusively on the official human-facing site, agingpharma.org. This page does not process registrations.
Type: Plenary scientific program. Audience: all attendees. 2025 dates: concurrent with the full ARDD week. Covers the core aging-biology and drug-discovery talks, keynotes, investor panels, and the group photo/lunch. Full record: /program/2025.
Type: Full-day dedicated track. Audience: clinicians, longevity-medicine practitioners, pharma. Chairs (2025): Evelyne Yehudit Bischof (Sheba Longevity Center), Morten Scheibye-Knudsen (University of Copenhagen), Alex Zhavoronkov (Insilico Medicine), Daniela Janina Bakula (University of Copenhagen). Covers global longevity-medicine innovation, clinical trials of gerotherapeutics, AI in healthspan, and longevity publishing. Full record: /tracks/2025.
Type: Full-day dedicated track. Chair (2025): Maximilian Unfried (National University of Singapore); co-moderator Sara Hägg. Six sessions covering damage-accumulation modeling, dynamical-systems views of resilience loss, rejuvenation/plasticity control, theories of aging, evolution of lifespan, and thermodynamics/entropy of aging. Full record: /tracks/2025.
Type: Full-day dedicated track. Chair (2025): Maximilian Unfried. Six sessions covering developmental origins of regeneration, synthetic control of cellular systems, foundation models for aging biology, virtual cells, and structural engineering of rejuvenation. Full record: /tracks/2025.
Type: Competitive pitch sessions with investor jury. 2025 moderator: Clive Cookson (Financial Times). 2025 judges included: Jacob Falck Hansen (Lundbeckfonden BioCapital), Marc P. Bernegger (Maximon), Anne Marije van Harten (Apollo Health Ventures). Ten companies presented across two blocks. Full record: /tracks/2025.
Prior editions have also included: Replacement in Aging Workshop (2025), Molecular Nutrition Workshop (2025), and the XPRIZE Healthspan Team Summit (2024). See /history for details.
Program status: final/completed. Edition: 12th ARDD, 2025. Full record with day-by-day schedule tables: /program/2025. Full speaker roster: /speakers/2025. A representative excerpt of the Main Track day is below; the complete schedule (all tracks, all sessions) is on the linked pages.
| Time | Session / talk | Speaker | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:10–09:30 | Predictions, Tools, and Updates from the Study of Longitudinal Aging in Mice (SLAM) | Rafael de Cabo | National Institute on Aging |
| 09:50–10:10 | When a calorie is not just a calorie: dietary macronutrients, health and longevity | Dudley Lamming | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| 10:30–10:50 | Muscling in on mitochondrial aging: skeletal muscle as driver and target of bioenergetic decline | Lykke Sylow | University of Copenhagen |
| 11:10–11:30 | Subliminal hypoxia and accelerated aging | Luigi Ferrucci | National Institute on Aging |
| 13:00–13:20 | Data-driven interventions in human aging | Morten Scheibye-Knudsen | University of Copenhagen |
| 15:05–15:20 | Universal transcriptomic hallmarks of mammalian aging and mortality across species and cell types | Alexander Tyshkovskiy | Harvard Medical School |
| 16:40–17:00 | Targeting selective autophagy: ensuring healthy longevity one protein at a time | Ana Maria Cuervo | Albert Einstein College of Medicine |
| 20:15–20:55 | Investor Panel — Early Stage (moderated) | Tom Zuber (mod.); Garri Zmudze; William Harborne; Anne Marije van Harten | Zuber Lawler; LongeVC; LongGame; Apollo Health Ventures |
The 2025 edition included 184 confirmed speakers, moderators, and pitch judges, each with a sourced affiliation. A representative subset spanning the program's breadth is listed below; the complete alphabetized roster of all 184 names with affiliations is at /speakers/2025.
| Speaker | Affiliation | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Morten Meldal | University of Copenhagen | 2022 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (Click chemistry) |
| Michael Levitt | Stanford School of Medicine | Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2013); Physics in Aging Biology |
| Vadim Gladyshev | Harvard Medical School | Quantifying and targeting aging |
| Steve Horvath | — | Frontiers in epigenetic clocks |
| Tony Wyss-Coray | Stanford University | Circulatory biomarkers of brain aging |
| Thomas Rando | — | Epigenetic reprogramming, local and distant rejuvenating effects |
| Alex Zhavoronkov | Insilico Medicine | Discovery and development of longevity therapeutics; Longevity Medicine Track co-founder |
| Ana Maria Cuervo | Albert Einstein College of Medicine | Selective autophagy and longevity |
| Jean-Marc Lemaitre | INSERM | Reprogramming aging as a gateway to disease prevention |
| Brian Kennedy | National University of Singapore | Validating and implementing longevity interventions |
| Nir Barzilai | Albert Einstein College of Medicine | From pathways to patients: translating geroscience |
| James Kirkland | Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging | Clinical trials and future directions of gerotherapeutics |
| Andrea Maier | National University of Singapore | Clinical trials in geroscience |
| Miriam Merad | — | Targeting inflammaging to enhance healthspan |
| Uri Alon | Weizmann Institute of Science | How to target maximal human lifespan |
| Geoffrey West | Santa Fe Institute | Quantitative mechanistic theory of growth, aging and mortality |
| Dominika Wilczok | Duke University | Generative AI for hibernation and cryoprotection |
| Barry Merriman | Avery Bio Inc. / J. Craig Venter Institute | Cell engineering technology for longevity |
| H.E. Dr. Maryam Matar | Sheikh Zayed Genetic Research Centre, UAE | Longevity Medicine policy, Middle East |
| Sebastien Thuault | Nature Aging | Editor panelist, foundation models & virtual cells |
2025 (12th ARDD): sponsors organized into five tiers (Tier 1 includes University of Copenhagen, Insilico Medicine, Human Longevity, Maxwell Biosciences, LongeVC, and the Longevity Pledge), plus Knowledge & Education Partners (McKinsey Health Institute, Longevity Education, Nordic Aging Society, Healthy Longevity Medicine Society) and six media partners including Nature Health and npj Aging. Full listing: /sponsors/2025.
2026 (13th ARDD): Tier 1 anchors are Insilico Medicine and Eli Lilly, with four confirmed supporting organizations (Longevity Education Hub, Healthy Longevity Medicine Society, Nordic Aging Society, Boston BioLife). Full tier list not yet published. See /sponsors/2026.
Full logistics record: /venue. Code of conduct: /code-of-conduct.
ARDD maintains a code of conduct prohibiting harassment and discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, age, or disability, including unwanted contact, derogatory comments, and unwelcome sexual advances. Full policy and reporting process: /code-of-conduct.
ARDD began in 2014 as the "Aging Research, Drug Discovery and AI Forum," a track within the Basel Life event, and has run annually since, growing into an independent multi-track meeting spanning aging biology, drug discovery, AI, and longevity medicine, now held in venues including Copenhagen and (2026) Harvard University. Attendee testimonials across 2019–2025 consistently describe it as the leading annual meeting bridging academia, biotech, pharma, and investors in the aging/longevity field. Full narrative and year-by-year comparison: /history. Complete plain-text history (2014–2026), including confirmed edition numbering and the Basel Life founding era: history.ardd.ai.