Bringing together aging researchers, developers and entrepreneurs, the Longevity Hackathon aims to build new tools, raise awareness and attract talent to the field.
Kicking off today and running until Sunday, LongHack offers participants a space to hack aging and increase the lifespan of human beings. And even though furthering longevity progress is a reward in itself, there are some pretty cool prizes available too!
€2000 from HEALEs
$3000 from VitaDAO
Investment of $100 000 from Longevitytech Fund
A full-year 2022 Foresight Institute‘s Fellowship
Longevity.Technology: We are really beginning to understand the impact big data can have on longevity. Longevity is a broad church, with numerous facets from genetic engineering up to aging in place; as well as needing a multidisciplinary approach, it also demands a big chunk of computer power – and this is where the hackathon takes centre stage. A weekend of brainstorming, innovation and prototypes – and the chance to really drive innovation in the space. We can’t wait to see the results!
LongHack welcomes ideas and solutions for patient care and support that advance access to medications and diagnostics, generate actionable insights and develop innovative products and ecosystems for longevity. The purpose of LongHack is to enable scientists, technologists and anyone interested in improving behavioural practices and standards of living to adopt discoveries, breakthroughs and societal changes at an accelerated pace.
To that end, the Longevity Hackathon has three different ‘tracks’ each with its own sets of challenges. People can enter as a team, or singly, joining a team at the event. There are also a range of datasets participants can delve into to initiate their projects, whether that’s human, mouse or other organism model. The Hackathon is open to scientists, biotech or genetics researchers, software, AI or VR engineers, designers, marketers, or entrepreneurs interested in longevity.
Biotechnology
The increasing expectation of human life for the healthcare systems has created increasing difficulties. When people get older, they are increasingly susceptible to chronic diseases and the associated burden of multimorbidity and polypharmacology. Accumulating evidence of laboratory animals has shown that aging can be improved by genetic and environmental measures.
Challenge topics:
- Multi-omics profiling (use of proteomics, genomics and molecular biology tools to identify genetic/epigenetic factors and pathways involved in aging)
- Biomarker-guided aging mechanism (genomics-based analyses such as next-generation sequencing to identify and validate a range of biomarkers of the hallmarks of aging.
The world’s population trends in population growth and aging show a population growing faster than other age groups, the so-called “oldest” populations. The mean age, the prevalence of chronic diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular diseases, all related co-morbidities and late-life handicaps is consequently increasing. Lifespan lengthening is based on the improvement of the services of public health and higher levels of education, leading to a healthy lifestyle with a positive net improvement in quality of life.
Challenge topics:
- In-silico antiaging mechanism (discovery/identification of new/repurposed molecules/drugs which could have potential antiaging activities)
- Precision medicine (data-analytics from genomics/proteomics for better clinical decision support and recommendations for personalised healthcare)
AI and bioinformatics in longevity
Increases in computational power and the accessibility of broadly available datasets have fostered the growth in AI in recent advances in the field of machine learning (ML). These developments have led to significant investment and hype, with many data scientists.
Challenge topics:
- Model-based data integration: a holistic view (high-throughput multi-omics datasets, at either populational or single-cell levels, can provide a multi-dimensional, integrated profile of the heterogeneous aging process)
- Digital biomarker: multi-modal analysis (developing effective scoring-based digital biomarkers to a range of diagnostic and prognostic measurements to identify genetic aging biomarkers and improve patient outcomes)
- Technology-based solutions (looking for solutions that enable users to upload their health information – from multiple sources – into a unified platform and real-time analysis/feedback for a personalised health report)
The Longevity Hackathon is running with with the support of Nir Barzilai, Director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is sponsored by VitaDAO, HEALEs (Healthy Life Extension Society) and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
To find out more, please visit the LongHack website HERE.
