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    Longevity research tracker: aging biology milestones

    As of October 2026 the frontier of aging research is the first human trial of partial epigenetic reprogramming, whose first three patients had no serious adverse events, and an FDA review of a dog lifespan drug that has cleared two of three requirements.[1][2] Human randomized trials of senolytics and rapamycin have so far missed primary endpoints, and the FDA does not recognize aging as a disease.[3][4][5]

    Editor reviewedStrict sourcingUpdated Aging and longevity biologyHealth and medicineLife sciences

    What we know

    • The first partial reprogramming therapy (ER-100) is in a Phase 1 human trial in glaucoma and NAION.[27]
    • Three low-dose ER-100 patients had no serious adverse events; dose escalation was recommended.[21]
    • Loyal's LOY-002 has cleared FDA effectiveness and safety sections; manufacturing review remains.[2]
    • The FDA does not recognize aging as a disease, and no regulatory framework exists for aging-targeted drugs.[5]
    • A randomized senolytic trial in 60 women missed its primary bone endpoint.[3]
    • Low-dose rapamycin in healthy adults (PEARL) did not change its primary outcome.[4]
    • There is no consensus on how to validate aging biomarkers as trial endpoints.[20]

    What we don't know yet

    • Whether ER-100's safety holds at higher doses and over longer follow-up, and whether early visual-field changes persist.
    • Whether and when the FDA will grant LOY-002 conditional approval, and what the STAY study shows about dogs' lifespan.
    • Whether TAME has begun enrolment and how much of its funding is secured (not confirmed from primary sources for this page).
    • What TRIAD will show about rapamycin and lifespan in pet dogs.
    • Whether OpenAI and Retro Biosciences' AI-designed reprogramming factors hold up in peer-reviewed work and in animals.
    • Which XPRIZE Healthspan finalists' therapies will show measurable functional benefits in randomized trials.
    • Whether any aging biomarker will be accepted as a surrogate endpoint by regulators.
    Story status

    Story status

    State
    developing
    Started
    2013-06-06
    Timeline entries
    28
    Last entry

    Timeline data (JSON)

    Where things stand

    This tracker starts in 2013, when the “hallmarks of aging” framework organised the field around a shared list of mechanisms.[6] In 2026 the field reached its first human test of partial reprogramming: Life Biosciences’ er-100 became the first partial reprogramming therapy cleared for human trials in January 2026.[7] In veterinary medicine, Loyal’s loy-002 has cleared two of three major FDA requirements for conditional approval.[2]

    Commercial efforts are spreading across species and methods. Loyal says the FDA accepted an effectiveness section for a third dog drug, LOY-003 for large breeds, in September 2026.[8] altos-labs and calico-life-sciences continue to invest in computation, and OpenAI has reported early work with Retro Biosciences on AI-designed reprogramming factors (see openai).[9][10][11]

    Human randomized evidence for other approaches remains weak: senolytics and low-dose rapamycin both missed primary endpoints in recent trials.[3][4] The senolytic developer Unity Biotechnology wound down in 2025, and its stockholders approved its dissolution that September.[12] Calico’s fosigotifator, which received Breakthrough Therapy Designation in June 2026 for a rare brain disease, had earlier missed its primary endpoint in an ALS trial.[13][14] Peer-reviewed papers from 2025 state that the FDA does not recognize aging as a disease and that no regulatory framework exists for approving aging-targeted therapies.[5]

    Laboratory and biomarker results

    Mouse studies keep producing large effects. Blocking the inflammatory protein IL-11 from 75 weeks of age extended median lifespan by 22.5% in males and 25% in females.[15] A whole-body OSK gene therapy extended the remaining lifespan of 124-week-old male mice by 109% in a company-run study.[16] A 2025 review of the NIA’s interventions-testing-program counted 13 compounds that extended lifespan in at least one sex, most of them mainly or only in males.[17]

    Measuring aging in people is still the bottleneck for human trials. A 2026 Cell study built clinical, multimodal and organ-level clocks from 2,019 Chinese adults and reported that plasma protein clocks track overall physiological capacity.[18] A July 2026 review listed the potential uses of such clocks, from spotting people at high risk of disease to testing whether an intervention changes the aging process.[19] No consensus yet exists on how to validate them for clinical use.[20] See how epigenetic clocks work.

    What to watch next

    • ER-100 dose escalation. The safety board recommended moving to the second dose level in glaucoma patients. Watch for higher-dose safety data and longer follow-up.[21]
    • LOY-002 manufacturing review. Acceptance of this section is the last major requirement before conditional approval can be considered.[2]
    • TRIAD results. The dog rapamycin trial is the first rigorous out-of-laboratory lifespan test of an anti-aging drug. It plans to enrol 580 dogs.[22][23]
    • ER-100 trial completion. The trial registration lists about 18 participants, five years of follow-up and an estimated primary completion date of May 2027.[24]
    • Loyal’s dog drugs. Beyond LOY-002’s manufacturing review, the STAY study of 1,317 dogs will test whether the drug actually extends life.[25]
    • XPRIZE Healthspan trials. Finalists must run randomized trials in 100–200 participants.[26]
    • Biomarker validation. Any agreed standard for aging biomarkers as surrogate endpoints would change how trials are designed.[20]

    How this tracker works

    Entries tagged confirmed rest on a peer-reviewed paper, an official statement or two independent reports.

    Entries tagged reported rest on a single company announcement.

    Background: crash course hub. Debates: aging-as-a-disease debate.

    Timeline

    25 confirmed3 reported

    1. reported

      First-in-human ER-100 data: no serious adverse events in three patients[1][44][21]

      Company-reported data from an ongoing safety study; visual-field changes are preliminary.

    2. reported

      Loyal says FDA accepted effectiveness section for big-dog drug LOY-003[8]

      Loyal's third RXE acceptance, after LOY-001 (2023) and LOY-002 (2025).

    3. confirmed

      XPRIZE Healthspan names 20 finalists[43]

    4. confirmed

      Calico's fosigotifator gets Breakthrough Therapy Designation[13]

      For vanishing white matter disease, not aging.

    5. confirmed

      First patient dosed with ER-100[27]

    6. confirmed

      Cell study builds multimodal and protein-based aging clocks[18]

    7. confirmed

      Life Biosciences announces $80 million Series D[42]

    8. confirmed

      FDA clears first partial reprogramming trial (ER-100)[7]

    9. confirmed

      FDA accepts safety section for LOY-002[41]

    10. confirmed

      Calico's kidney antibody ABBV-CLS-628 gets Orphan Drug Designation[40]

    11. confirmed

      Unity Biotechnology stockholders approve dissolution[12]

      The senolytic developer had cut all staff in May 2025 after its ASPIRE eye-disease data.

    12. confirmed

      Altos Labs scientists link partial reprogramming to reversing 'mesenchymal drift'[38][39]

    13. confirmed

      Two-decade ITP review finds most lifespan drugs work mainly in males[36][37]

    14. confirmed

      Calico licenses IL-11 antibodies from Mabwell[35]

    15. confirmed

      XPRIZE Healthspan awards first milestone prizes[34]

    16. confirmed

      Senolytic UBX1325 eye trial shows non-significant trend[33]

    17. confirmed

      PEARL rapamycin trial: safe over 48 weeks, primary outcome unchanged[4]

    18. confirmed

      FDA accepts effectiveness section for Loyal's LOY-002[32]

    19. confirmed

      Design of TRIAD rapamycin trial in pet dogs published[31]

    20. reported

      OpenAI says GPT-4b micro, built with Retro Biosciences, improved two Yamanaka factors[11]

      Preliminary company claims, not peer reviewed when announced.

    21. confirmed

      Calico's fosigotifator misses primary endpoint in HEALEY ALS trial[14]

    22. confirmed

      Survey shows aging researchers disagree on what aging is[30]

    23. confirmed

      Blocking IL-11 extends mouse lifespan by about a quarter[15]

    24. confirmed

      Phase 2 senolytic trial in postmenopausal women misses primary endpoint[3][29]

    25. confirmed

      Reanalysis finds metformin and four other compounds extend survival in ITP mice[28]

      Metformin's effect was seen in males only, and only with the Gehan test.

    26. confirmed

      Nature Medicine paper: no consensus on validating aging biomarkers[20]

    27. confirmed

      Whole-body OSK gene therapy extends remaining lifespan of old male mice[16]

      A company-run study (Rejuvenate Bio) in males only.

    28. confirmed

      Hallmarks of aging framework published in Cell[6]

      Nine hallmarks proposed as common denominators of aging; expanded to twelve in 2023.

    Questions readers ask

    What is the biggest longevity development of 2026?

    The first human trial of partial epigenetic reprogramming. The FDA cleared Life Biosciences' ER-100 in January, the first patient was dosed in June, and early data in October showed no serious adverse events in three patients.[7][27][1]

    Is there an approved drug that extends a dog's life?

    Not as of October 2026. Loyal's LOY-002 has cleared two of three major FDA requirements for conditional approval, with manufacturing review remaining.[2]

    Have senolytics worked in human trials?

    Not convincingly. A randomized trial in 60 women missed its primary endpoint, and an eye trial showed only a non-significant trend.[3][33]

    Sources

    Each numbered claim is a statement we checked against the sources listed with it. Status shows how well established it is.

    1. [1]

      In first-in-human data released on 8 October 2026, three open-angle glaucoma participants given the lowest ER-100 dose had no dose-limiting toxicities or serious adverse events. confirmedas of 2026-10-08

    2. [2]

      The manufacturing section must still be accepted before LOY-002 can be considered for conditional approval; as of October 2026 Loyal says two of three major requirements are complete and approval is not guaranteed. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    3. [3]

      In a 2024 phase 2 randomized trial in 60 postmenopausal women, intermittent dasatinib plus quercetin did not change the primary bone-resorption marker at 20 weeks compared with control. confirmedas of 2024-07-02

    4. [4]

      In PEARL, adverse events were similar across groups and the primary outcome, visceral fat, did not change significantly; some secondary measures improved, such as lean tissue mass and pain in women on 10 mg. confirmedas of 2025-04-04

    5. [5]

      Papers published in 2025 in peer-reviewed journals state that the FDA does not recognize aging as a disease and that no regulatory framework exists for developing or approving therapies that target aging, so such therapies are developed through disease-specific pipelines. confirmedas of 2025-08-04

    6. [6]

      A 2013 review in Cell proposed nine tentative hallmarks of aging as common denominators across organisms: genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion and altered intercellular communication. confirmedas of 2013-06-06

    7. [7]

      On 28 January 2026 Life Biosciences announced FDA clearance of its investigational new drug (IND) application for ER-100 in optic neuropathies, the first partial epigenetic reprogramming therapy cleared for human testing. confirmedas of 2026-01-28

    8. [8]

      On 16 September 2026 Loyal said the FDA had accepted the reasonable expectation of effectiveness (RXE) for LOY-003, a once-daily tablet meant to extend the lifespan of large and giant-breed dogs by lowering growth hormone and IGF-1; Loyal says this is its third RXE, after LOY-001 and LOY-002. reportedas of 2026-09-16

    9. [9]

      Altos Labs formed an Institute of Computation to build computational models of biological resilience at the cell, organ and organism levels, alongside its Institutes of Science and Institute of Medicine. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    10. [10]

      Calico says it combines Alphabet's computing with large human genetic, phenotypic, clinical and lifestyle datasets, feeding machine learning used for target discovery and molecular design. confirmedas of 2026-06-22

    11. [11]

      In January 2025 OpenAI said a protein-engineering model, GPT-4b micro, built with the longevity company Retro Biosciences, suggested changes that made two Yamanaka factors more than 50 times as effective on some preliminary measures; outside scientists could not assess the claim until it was published. reportedas of 2025-01-17

    12. [12]

      Unity Biotechnology, the developer of the senolytic UBX1325, cut all of its staff in May 2025 after 36-week data from its ASPIRE study, and its stockholders approved the company's liquidation and dissolution on 18 September 2025. confirmedas of 2025-09-19

    13. [13]

      On 23 June 2026 the FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to Calico's fosigotifator, an investigational eIF2B activator, for vanishing white matter disease; it is in a Phase 1b/2 trial. confirmedas of 2026-06-23

    14. [14]

      In January 2025 Calico reported that fosigotifator did not meet the primary endpoint of disease progression in its arm (Regimen F) of the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial, at either the primary or an exploratory high dose. confirmedas of 2025-01-06

    15. [15]

      In a 2024 Nature study, an anti-IL-11 antibody given to mice from 75 weeks of age until death extended median lifespan by 22.5% in males and 25% in females. confirmedas of 2024-07-17

    16. [16]

      In a 2024 study by researchers at Rejuvenate Bio, systemically delivered AAV vectors carrying inducible OSK extended the median remaining lifespan of 124-week-old male mice by 109% over controls and improved frailty scores. confirmedas of 2024-02-01

    17. [17]

      A 2025 review of two decades of ITP results counted 13 compounds that significantly prolonged lifespan in at least one sex; rapamycin was the only one that worked better in females, and eight, including aspirin, canagliflozin, 17-alpha-estradiol and astaxanthin, worked only in males. confirmedas of 2025-07-24

    18. [18]

      A 2026 Cell study built clinical, multimodal and organ-level aging clocks from a cohort of 2,019 Chinese adults aged 18 to 91 and reported that plasma protein clocks serve as efficient proxies for systemic physiological capacity. confirmedas of 2026-05-08

    19. [19]

      A July 2026 Nature Medicine review lists potential uses of biological aging clocks as identifying people at high risk of disease, supporting prevention or early detection, and testing whether lifestyle or interventions change the aging process. confirmedas of 2026-07-09

    20. [20]

      Aging biomarkers could serve as surrogate endpoints for trials of longevity interventions, but as of 2024 there was no consensus on how they should be validated before clinical use. confirmedas of 2024-02-14

    21. [21]

      The trial's data safety monitoring board recommended escalating to the second dose level in glaucoma participants, and the trial is ongoing. confirmedas of 2026-10-08

    22. [22]

      Its designers describe TRIAD as the first rigorous test of a drug against biological aging with lifespan and healthspan endpoints performed outside the laboratory in any species. confirmedas of 2025-02-14

    23. [23]

      TRIAD plans to enrol and randomize 580 dogs, with survival time from randomization as its primary outcome. confirmedas of 2025-02-14

    24. [24]

      The ER-100 Phase 1 trial (NCT07290244) is recruiting an estimated 18 adults with open-angle glaucoma or NAION, gives a single dose, and follows participants for up to five years; its estimated primary completion date is May 2027. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    25. [25]

      As of October 2026 Loyal's website lists 1,317 dogs enrolled in the STAY trial at 70 veterinary practices and three drug programs in development. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    26. [26]

      Teams in the XPRIZE Healthspan finals must be prepared to run randomized controlled clinical trials in 100 to 200 participants. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    27. [27]

      On 9 June 2026 Life Biosciences announced the first patient dosed in its Phase 1 trial of ER-100 (NCT07290244) in open-angle glaucoma and non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), which evaluates safety and tolerability with additional visual-function endpoints. confirmedas of 2026-06-09

    28. [28]

      A 2024 reanalysis of ITP data from 2004 to 2022 with the Gehan test, which is more sensitive to mortality differences earlier in life, found that metformin, previously missed by the log-rank test, increased survival in male mice only. confirmedas of 2024-04-17

    29. [29]

      Exploratory analyses of the 2024 bone trial suggested that women with a high senescent-cell burden responded to dasatinib plus quercetin, a hypothesis the authors said needs further testing. confirmedas of 2024-07-02

    30. [30]

      A 2024 survey of aging researchers found no consensus, and not even a majority view, on core questions such as what aging is, what causes it, when it begins and what counts as rejuvenation. confirmedas of 2024-12-03

    31. [31]

      TRIAD is a double-masked, randomized, placebo-controlled multicenter trial testing whether rapamycin extends lifespan and improves healthspan in healthy middle-aged companion dogs from the Dog Aging Project. confirmedas of 2025-02-14

    32. [32]

      In February 2025 the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine accepted the reasonable expectation of effectiveness (RXE) section for Loyal's LOY-002, a daily pill intended to extend lifespan in senior dogs. confirmedas of 2025-02-26

    33. [33]

      In a 65-person sham-controlled trial in diabetic macular edema, UBX1325 showed a non-significant 5.6-letter visual acuity advantage at 48 weeks, and the authors called for larger trials. confirmedas of 2025-04-22

    34. [34]

      XPRIZE Healthspan awarded its first milestone prizes on 12 May 2025. confirmedas of 2025-05-12

    35. [35]

      In June 2025 Calico took an exclusive license from Mabwell to IL-11-directed therapeutics, including 9MW3811, a monoclonal antibody in Phase 1. confirmedas of 2025-06-26

    36. [36]

      Most compounds that extended lifespan in the ITP worked primarily or only in male mice. confirmedas of 2025-07-24

    37. [37]

      Over two decades the ITP has tested 54 agents in more than 30,000 mice. confirmedas of 2025-07-24

    38. [38]

      A 2025 Cell study reported a pervasive "mesenchymal drift" in gene expression across human tissues and diseases and found that Yamanaka-factor partial reprogramming reduced it before cells lost their identity. confirmedas of 2025-08-14

    39. [39]

      The 2025 Cell study on mesenchymal drift and partial reprogramming was carried out by researchers at Altos Labs' San Diego Institute of Science. confirmedas of 2025-08-14

    40. [40]

      In November 2025 the FDA granted Orphan Drug Designation to ABBV-CLS-628, an anti-PAPP-A antibody developed by Calico with AbbVie for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease; it had already received Fast Track designation and was in a Phase 2 trial. confirmedas of 2025-11-05

    41. [41]

      In January 2026 the FDA accepted the target animal safety (TAS) technical section of LOY-002's conditional approval application. confirmedas of 2026-01-13

    42. [42]

      Life Biosciences announced an $80 million Series D financing on 8 April 2026. confirmedas of 2026-04-08

    43. [43]

      On 11 August 2026 XPRIZE named 20 Healthspan finalist teams, 10 of which received US$1 million milestone awards. confirmedas of 2026-08-11

    44. [44]

      The company reported visual-field improvements in two of the three participants at day 56, in a Phase 1 study designed to assess safety rather than efficacy. reportedas of 2026-10-08

    Revision history (2)
    1. Page created.
    2. Refresh: added 2024-2026 entries (whole-body OSK in mice, Calico's ALS result, kidney and IL-11 programs, OpenAI and Retro Biosciences, Unity's dissolution, Life Biosciences' Series D, LOY-003) and expanded the watch list.

    Created Oct 10, 2026. Last reviewed by an editor on Oct 10, 2026. Next scheduled review: Jan 10, 2027.

    Cite this page

    "Longevity research tracker: aging biology milestones." ContentLora, updated Oct 10, 2026. https://contentlora.com/events/longevity-tracker

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