Popular longevity medicine course launches for UK physicians on Health Data Research UK Platform.
The first and now CME accredited online course “The Introduction to Longevity Medicine for Physicians” has launched on the Health Data Research UK Platform.
Longevity.Technology: The Longevity Medicine for Physicians course was developed collaboratively between leading AI researchers, geroscientists and practising physicians in order to provide the first credible source of longevity medicine education for upskilling healthcare professionals. Aging is the greatest risk factor for most acute and chronic diseases, and although we are on the cusp of being able to intervene in the aging process to effectively decrease overall mortality and morbidity rates for an aging population, longevity research is far ahead of medicine progress-wise. This course aims to bridge this gap, bringing clinicians up to speed with recent advances in aging and longevity interventions and bringing anti-aging out of the lab and into the clinic.
“I was delighted to be able to help introduce the very popular ‘Introduction to Longevity Medicines for Physicians’ to the UK learning sector.” said Alan Davis, Innovative Programmes and Partnerships Director, Innovation, Digital & Transformation Directorate at NHS Health Education England. “The work of Alex, Evelyne and colleagues is truly revolutionary, and I’ve long been fascinated by the amount of information that can be inferred and the potential for lifespan change that can flow from the novel biomarkers and implementation of AI associated with them. This is a course very much with an eye on the future needs of society.”
Initiated and authored by the interdisciplinary team led by Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, from Deep Longevity, Evelyne Bischof, MD, of University of Zurich International Center for Multimorbidity and Complexity in Medicine (ICMC) and Human Longevity Inc San Diego/Beijing, Alexey Moskalev, PhD, of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, MD, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen, the free Longevity Medicine Course was launched on a public educational platform in December 2020, with over 2,700 learners registering immediately. In July 2021 the Course transitioned to the Longevity Degree platform and received the Continuing Medical Education (CME) accreditation from the Medical Society of Delaware (MSD). In March 2021, the Longevity Medicine Course authors worked with the leadership of the Health Data Research UK and the course was adapted and launched on the HDR UK platform. This is a major step towards shaping a new generation of longevity physicians in the UK and beyond.
Longevity Medicine is defined as a branch of precision medicine that is specifically focused on promoting healthspan and lifespan and is powered by AI technology [1]. It is a burgeoning, rapidly-evolving discipline, fuelled by the progress in gerosciences, AI/biotech and clinical medicine. Moreover, it aims to add the most advanced personalised approaches continually, such as multi-omics, deep aging biomarkers, precision imaging, deep aging clocks, robotics, smart technologies, &c. This enormous pace and granularity demand an intensive acceleration of the translation from basic science towards the clinic, as well as a parallel, continued credible education for practising physicians.
The aim of longevity medicine is to use novel quantifiable and quantifying biomarkers of aging, such as deep aging clocks, with the intention to maintain the patient’s biological and psychological age as close to the state of optimal performance throughout the course of life as possible.
The Longevity Medicine Course group published two consecutive scientific papers to define this new field in Nature Aging (Artificial Intelligence in Longevity Medicine) and in Lancet Healthy Longevity (Longevity medicine: upskilling the physicians of tomorrow). The course is also expanding to various national leading educational platforms – crucially, in the respective local languages; these countries include China, Switzerland, France, Israel, Brazil and Russia. At the same time, the course is being continually updated, with a raft of new courses launching soon, including a 12-hour course for advanced longevity medicine scientists and practitioners, as well as a separate course designed specifically for clinicians, based on real world and demonstrative case studies.
The clinical and scientific authors team critically evaluates the pedagogic and scientific outcome of the first cohort of the learners, in order to develop new learning tools and practical guidelines for the longevity medicine field. The course organisers are also studying how the physicians use the course materials learned in their daily work, as well as in their choices of follow-up education. The findings and the new learning tools were presented at the Longevity Medicine Workshop at the 8th Aging Research for Drug Discovery conference.
“Physicians are the critical part of the longevity industry and it can move only as fast as the physicians do,” says Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, co-founder of the course. “Therefore, keeping the physicians informed about the recent advances in aging research is extremely important and is also important to keep them engaged. This course provides the very basic introduction to the field of longevity medicine where instead of treating or preventing disease, we are trying to keep the patient as close to the state of peak lifespan performance for as long as possible.”
“We are enchanted by the fact that more and more international medical platforms are embracing the Longevity Medicine Course,” says Evelyne Bischof, MD, longevity physician at Human Longevity and professor of clinical medicine at the Shanghai University of medicine and Health Sciences. “It is such a crucial and explicit task to spread the knowledge of longevity medicine in a course specifically prepared and targeted for physicians with the intention to awaken their enthusiasm towards this new, hopefully soon to be defined as a subspecialty or discipline. Our drive and motivation is to create a bridge between gerosciences and clinical medicine.”
“The acceleration of developments in longevity science and the growth in practical solutions to keep us healthier for longer as we age is exciting for clinicians and all healthcare professionals interested in 4P medicine (predictive, preventative, personalized, participatory),” comments Tina Woods, CEO, Collider Health, Director, APPG for Longevity. “This course provides an excellent foundation to apply this knowledge in day-to-day work in the quest to achieve healthy longevity equitably for all citizens.”
“We are delighted to be hosting Deep Longevity’s accredited Longevity Medicine on HDR UK Futures,” says Sarah Cadman, Programme Director – Talent & Training HDR UK. “It is just one of a growing library of high quality accredited learning programs that HDR UK are proud to host on our state of the art learning platform.”
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-020-00020-4
