The BSRA celebrated its 75th Annual Scientific Meeting last month (Sept. 9-11) bringing together more international delegates and industry attendees than ever before, according to David Weinkove, professor at Durham University and emeritus chair and trustee of the society.
Yet, despite the broadening interest, Weinkove argued academics are not receiving the funding needed to accelerate scientific evidence in line with fast growing commercial interest.
“Even though we’ve been going 80 odd years, there’s still so much we don’t know and a lot of that is due to funding restrictions, so we really need to step it up and make people aware that this is important.”
Speaking about the gaps in fundamental knowledge, Weinkove said there has been a disconnect between the discoveries made in this field and the impact on society.
“We can see the importance of the topic in this country as the National Health Service is under pressure from an aging society,” he said. “That problem is only going to get worse, and it’s an issue present across the globe.”
At the same time, there has been more interest from consumers and ‘hype’ from health influencers on social media, he said, yet it’s been a challenge to get consumers to connect the dots between this research and these societal issues.
“I don’t think, historically, we have articulated how research into aging would have a direct impact on people,” Weinkove noted. “It’s a tougher sell than something like a disease where the aim is clear and tangible; to find a cure.”
He said that while there is growing innovation in supplements and functional foods to support longevity, “the money being made is not making its way back to academia to improve research backing for these products”.
Evolution of our understanding
According to Weinkove, our understanding of the biology of aging fundamentally changed in the 1990s when scientists first discovered specific genes that had a significant impact on aging.
“That was a revolutionary thing,” he explained. “In the late 90s, they worked out the age-1 gene encodes a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), an enzyme involved in responding to insulin. This pathway senses signals relating to nutrients, growth and metabolism and helps determine whether the animal prioritizes growth and reproduction or processes associated with maintenance and survival.”
Since then, academics have discovered other specific genes and genetic differences associated with long lifespans in humans, such as the e4 variant of the APOE gene, which is associated with shorter lifespan and greater risk of Alzheimer’s Disease.
While academics believe the effect on lifespan is likely related to how they impact the individual’s utilization of lipids, Weinkove said they still do not know why that impacts lifespan.
Since the 1930s, science has shown that calorie restriction can make people live longer, yet, despite huge interest in this phenomenon, there is much progress yet to be made.
“We’ve since learnt which genes are involved in that and the mechanisms behind that, such as the mTOR pathway, but we still don’t know how to harness or reproduce that mechanism with a drug or a supplement,” said Weinkove.
Today, research in this field is often spoken about in relation to the “Hallmarks of Aging”—a concept providing a clear framework of the areas of biology impacted by aging, first mentioned in a peer published study in 2013.
While the concept has brought some clarity and structure to a hard to define category, Weinkove argued this framework does have its downsides.
“These areas of biology are those we have already looked at,” he noted. “There are probably other areas that are important that haven’t been discussed which could be neglected if people focus on these outlined Hallmarks.”
A call to industry
The association had reached 100 paying members when Weinkove joined in 2022, and it has since grown to 300. This represented an accelerated speed of growth which he attributed to a growing interest in the topic as well as changes within the organization.
“The BSRA hasn’t been an outward facing charity in the past,” Weinkove said. “It now hosts a public lecture series online including panels, interviews and presentations to give more the public a better understanding of the insights delivered by this research.”
The organization also invites non-academics onto its board of trustees in an aim to have more engagement with the public and is relaunching its website with a more outward facing, consumer-friendly look and feel.
“If companies would help fund this research, relatively small amounts would make a big difference,” Weinkove added. “We’ve got many young scientists from over 50 different institutions across the UK, and the main thing that holds them back more than anything, is funding, so my call to industry would be that a little bit of support would go a long way.”
David Weinkove will join academia and industry’s most influential experts at NutraIngredients’ Nutra Healthspan Summit taking place in London, Nov. 10 to 11, 2026. Want to be involved? Visit the event website to learn more and book tickets.
