Today, he said, he sees support for longevity science from his colleagues within HHS. He said, “If I could describe a common theme for senior leadership at HHS, obviously it is making America healthy again, and reversing the harms of aging is making people healthy again.” “We are refocusing HHS on addressing and reversing chronic disease, and chronic diseases largely drive aging.”
Over the past year, thousands of NIH grants worth more than $2 billion were awarded frozen or terminatedThat includes funding for research on cancer biology, health disparities, neuroscience and more. When asked if any of that funding would be restored, he did not answer the question directly, instead saying: “You’ll see a lot of the funding focused more on important priorities that actually improve people’s health.”
Check out ARPA-H for organ replacement and more news
He promised that we would hear more from ARPA-H, the three-year-old federal agency dedicated to achieving breakthroughs in medical science and biotechnology. It was established with the official goal of promotingHigh-risk, high-reward innovations to develop and translate transformative health technologies“
O’Neill said that “ARPA-H exists to make the impossible possible in health and medicine.” The agency has a new director-alicia jacksonwho previously founded and led the company focused on women’s health and longevity, took up the role in October last year.
O’Neill said he helped recruit Jackson, and that he was hired because of his interest in longevity, which would now become a major focus of the agency. He said he meets with them regularly, as well as Andrew Brack and Jean Hebert, two other longevity proponents who lead departments at ARPA-H. brack’s Program The focus has been on finding biological markers of aging. Hebert’s goal is to find a way to replace aging brain tissue bit by bit.
O’Neill is particularly excited by this, he said. “I’ll try it… not today, but… if progress goes broadly in a good direction, I’ll be up for it. We’re hoping to see significant results over the next few years.”
He is also excited by the idea of creating brand new organs for transplant. “Someday we want to be able to grow new organs, ideally from patients’ own cells,” O’Neill said. He further said that the ARPA-H program would receive $170 million over five years. “I’m very excited about ARPA-H and the ability of Alicia and Gene and Andrew to really move things forward.”
Longevity lobbyists have friendly ears
O’Neill said he also talks regularly to the team at the lobbying group Alliance for Longevity Initiatives. The organization, led by Dylan Livingston, played a key role in changing state law in Montana to make experimental treatments more accessible. O’Neill said he has not formally worked with them, but believes “they are doing a really good job at raising awareness, including on Capitol Hill.”
