Our Mission and Vision

Our Vision

We will unlock the keys to healthy aging, enabling individuals and communities worldwide to live longer and healthier lives, achieve greater productivity, and enjoy a sustained sense of well-being.

Our Mission

The Healthy Aging Initiative will spark innovation in geroscience through a unique and strategic interdisciplinary collaboration that brings together world-leading experts in laboratory science and public health.

Our research will be rigorous and focused: A scientific mission to extend the human lifespan—and make those added years healthy and productive.

We will:

Advance the field

• Unlock the science of biological aging at the genetic, molecular, and cellular levels.
• Uncover social, psychological, behavioral, and biological drivers of age-related disease through large epidemiological studies.
• Identify the biological mechanisms by which socioeconomic and psychosocial factors influence human aging, separately considering factors that promote health from those that increase risk and deterioration.
• Identify targets for interventions that promote healthy aging at the population scale.
• Address inequities in healthy aging, both within and between populations.

Train the next generation

• Develop relevant courses to offer at Harvard Chan School and beyond.
• Build a concentration in geroscience for students at the School.
• Secure funds to support student scholarships and training.

Translate insights into action

• Share findings with the academic community through seminars, webinars, and a guest lecture series.
• Communicate our findings to policymakers, the press, and the public—clearly and accurately, without hyperbole.
• Work with industry, governments, nonprofits, and communities to translate our research into therapeutics, policies, and public health recommendations that meaningfully extend the human healthspan around the globe.