Professor João Pedro de Magalhães on different areas of Longevity.

Continuing our series of interviews with our Advisory Panel members, we caught up with João Pedro de Magalhães, PhD, Professor at the Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease at the University of Liverpool.

Longevity.Technology: João Pedro is a scientist and futurist whose Human Ageing Genomic Resources database is an important tool for studying the genetics of human aging. With his eye on the spread of Longevity areas before him, we asked João Pedro which areas warrant more attention.

João Pedro de Magalhães: I think the mechanisms of aging seems to have disappeared from the radar a bit. There is a lot of focus on Longevity manipulations and interventions, but I think the field has kind of focussed less on understanding the process of aging.

Longevity.Technology: What about education on Longevity for investors?
João Pedro de Magalhães: I still think there’s a lot we need to do in terms of educating investors, yes, although of course there are now more investors and some of them are more knowledgeable about Longevity and aging. Nonetheless, still lots of work to do and your efforts in this are very much appreciated.

Longevity.Technology: Which areas will always underpin Longevity, do you think? Might changes be coming?
João Pedro de Magalhães: Immunotherapy is very much focused on cancer, and I don’t think it’s going to go away any time soon. Senolytics are fashionable now, but they weren’t sometime ago, so they may come and go, hard to say. And there will likely be other pharmacological interventions that will be of interest and may become more popular down the line. I think genetherapy will grow in popularity, actually, it’s still not very mainstream.

Check out our earlier interview with Advisory Panel member and LyGenesis CEO Michael Hufford.