Forthcoming Longevity Industry Conferences, March to May 2020
If you are interested in joining or investing in the growing longevity industry, there are now a fair few conferences taking place each year at which it is possible to meet people, get involved, and make inroads on building a network. Since this is still a young industry, it remains a very friendly, close-knit community in which many of the participants have been involved in research or patient advocacy in the aging field for quite some time. Aging research is in many ways still a small field of research in which everyone tends to know everyone else in the inner circles, and the present longevity industry is just the first steps on a long road towards become the majority of all medical development. Growth lies ahead, and now is a great time to become involved.
Master Investor, London, March 28th 2020
The Master Investor conference series is one of ways in which Jim Mellon's network acts to promote the longevity industry: that it is a wondrous opportunity to change the human condition for the better and make a return on investment while doing it. It isn't enough to start a venture like Juvenescence and invest in a score or more of biotech startups working interventions in the aging process, one must also sell the rest of the investment community and the broader biotech community on the nature of this opportunity, leading to the establishment of bigger pools of funding for later stage companies as they emerge. None of this automatically happens; every step forward requires someone to do the work of persuasion, networking, coordination. Master Investor is a part of this process, and thus a good place for people who are not already on the inside of the longevity industry to meet people who are.
Longevity Leaders World Congress, London, April 21st 2020
Longevity Leaders World Congress is one of a range of biotech conferences run by the LSX organization in the US and UK. This remains distinctive by virtue of drawing in interested factions not present in large numbers at the other conferences yet, such as the life insurance and pensions industries. This conference is a good example of the dynamism that results when putting scientists, entrepreneurs, and investors in the same room for a few days, all interested in seeing progress towards the medical control of aging. The establishment of a growing community capable of advancing promising research from the lab to the clinic requires exactly this sort of gathering.
Undoing Aging, Berlin, May 21st 2020
Undoing Aging is of course the most important of the conferences in which academia meets industry, to discuss how to move forward towards working rejuvenation therapies. Is is organized by the SENS Research Foundation and Forever Healthy Foundation, and the tone is thus very much more ambitious than is the case elsewhere. The goal is the end of aging, not just slowing it down a little. Being held in central Europe, there is a very different mix of investors and advocates than is found in the US - a different end of the international community. It was quite a large gathering in 2019, overflowing the venue, and promises to be much the same this year.
Gonna be a bad year for conferencing I guess.
I'm urging those organizing these conferences to make them virtual e-conferences. It isn't just being around lots of other potentially affected attendees in a circulated air environment (Diamond Princess), it is the flights to get you there. We can't afford to loose even one longevity researcher to Coronavirus.
I had initially planned to attend Undoing Aging but with the current situation non-vital travel is ill advised, not to mention the attendance of large gatherings. I won't be attending any physical conferences this year, e-conferences would be very welcome.
The research company I work for and many of our partners have banned all overseas travel for staff.