A few years ago, a Prudential billboard declared “The First Person to Live to 150 is Alive Today.”  Given recent breakthroughs in the science of aging and longevity, these words may one day amount to more than an advertising pitch for retirement savings. A major new research center at UC Santa Barbara, the Center for Aging and Longevity Studies (CALS), which will be showcased to the public in April, is working to make this alluring message a reality.

This inauguration of California’s newest research center devoted to the science of healthy longevity is motivated by recent discoveries revealing how time drives the inexorable process of aging and how its effects can be dramatically delayed. These breakthroughs, including ongoing research in CALS laboratories, mean that we may soon be able to extend the period of youthful vibrancy during the arc of life, and perhaps quite substantially.

Soaring medical costs are disproportionately attributable to age-related illness. “A major driver of biological research in CALS is understanding how to extend human healthspan, the period of life in which we abound with vitality,” noted Joel Rothman, the director of CALS and a professor of biology. “It is likely that a large number of age-related diseases could simultaneously be reduced or eliminated in a single stroke simply by slowing the biological aging clock.”