Leveraging AI To Accelerate Precision Health For Longevity – Forbes

Aging Analytics Agency

People over 50 are the fastest growing demographic group worldwide. This creates both opportunities and challenges for the global economy and healthcare systems. The Longevity Industry, which provides products and services for those aged over 50 is becoming a multi-trillion-dollar industry. There are currently 260 companies, 250 investors, 10 non-profits, and 10 research labs in the Longevity Industry in the UK alone. In the next decade, Longevity policies enacted by governments, and changes in the financial industry will transform society. Achieving small but practical results in Longevity distributed at scale will have enormous and multiplicative effects on society. Extending the functional lifespan of humans by just one year will decrease suffering for tens of millions of people and will improve the quality of life for billions of people.

Despite having more potential to increase healthy Longevity in the short term than any other sector, AI for Longevity is an underrepresented sector in the Longevity Industry. AI holds enormous potential to rapidly accelerate the implementation of longevity research and development. To address this, Ageing Research at King's (ARK) in collaboration with the Biogerontology Research Foundation, Deep Knowledge Ventures (at which I am a Managing Partner), and other organizations have established the Longevity AI Consortium at Kings College London. The Consortium will use King's world-leading advances in genetics, AI and ageing research to develop advanced personalized consumer and patient care. The Consortium will help accelerate advances in Longevity using a unique academic-industry focus on preventive and personalized physical, mental and financial health. The establishment of the AI Longevity Consortium and AI Longevity Accelerator at Kings College has the potential to help make the UK the worlds leading AI for Longevity Hub and creates an opportunity for huge advances in Longevity research which will benefit people all around the world.

Over the next few years, the Longevity AI Consortium plans to expand to include centers in Switzerland, Israel, Singapore and the US. This collaborative effort involves sophisticated methods for translating advanced AI for Longevity solutions, along with the development of advanced frameworks and technologies including novel applications of life data for insurance companies, pension funds, healthcare companies, and government bodies. These new technologies and instruments at the forefront of the rising Longevity Financial Industry provide practical applications of preventive medicine and precision health.

Sophisticated Analytical Frameworks for Precision Medicine and Longevity Diagnostics, Prognostics ... [+] and Therapeutic Benchmarking.

The Longevity AI Consortium will serve as a leading R&D hub and industry-academic hotspot for advanced AI-driven personalized preventive diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutics. This represents a paradigm shift from treatment to prevention and a new frontier - from precision medicine to precision health, enabling the UK to become the leading global hub for the application of AI to Longevity and Precision Health. The Longevity AI Consortium plans to dedicate resources to R&D in other niches where the science is ahead of the funding: e.g. microbiome diagnostics and therapeutics, recent advancements and innovations in advanced cosmetics in particular. The Consortium aims to identify novel longevity and healthy ageing biomarkers, accelerate diagnosis of age-related health decline, develop personalised physical, mental and financial health to better implement and promote effective healthy lifestyles for longevity, such as modifying patterns in sleep, nutrition, physical activity, environmental exposure and financial planning.

The Longevity AI Consortium will use sophisticated and multidimensional analytical frameworks developed by Aging Analytics Agency to perform industry benchmarking in precision health and personalized preventive medicine clinics in order to construct the ideal diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic pipeline using the most advanced market-ready methods and technologies. The Consortium will develop a comprehensive cloud computing platform to enable the development of minimum viable and most comprehensive panels of biomarkers of aging, creating an ecosystem that incentivizes the participation of doctors, clinics, data providers, AI companies and corporate partners, and which enables efficient and streamlined commercialization and clinical implementation of both validated and experimental biomarkers of ageing as a framework for the extension of national Healthy Longevity in the UK.

This mind map provides an overview of the Longevity Industry UK Landscape including 260 companies, ... [+] 250 investors, 10 non-profits, and 10 research labs. (Image source Aging Analytics Agency).

Kings College London is the logical choice of location for the first Longevity AI Consortium, due to their unique combination of resources, departments and technologies for both AI and Longevity. Kings is also an ideal location for the AI Consortium because it has dedicated divisions and resources both for AI and for Longevity. Furthermore, being located in London, it is in an ideal physical location to engage in cross-sector and industry-academic collaboration. The AI Longevity Consortium is currently designing a complementary AI Consortium for Financial Wellness which will utilize financial and behavioural data to develop products and services to enable UK citizens to maintain financial stability, social activity and psychological well-being across extended periods of Healthy Longevity.

Currently there are only three centers in the world actively working to apply AI to precision health for healthy Longevity. These include the US based Buck Institute for Research on Aging, US based Y Combinator, and the US based AI Precision Health Institute (AI-PHI) at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. Only the AI-PHI has actually succeeded in practice. Now that the Longevity AI Consortium has been established at Kings College London, the UK can immediately leverage its existing resources, including its very well-developed AI industry and its reputation for extremely strong industry, academic, and governmental cooperative initiatives, to become the number one global hub for the application of AI to Longevity and Precision Health.

There are currently four major AI Centres for Healthcare in major industry, academic and metropolitan hubs in the UK, but none of them have a specific focus on Longevity, precision health and preventive medicine. While these centres serve as a precedent and proof-of-concept for the viability of an AI Centre for Longevity, they do not adequately address the need for a leading AI for Longevity R&D nexus within the UK capable of developing leading solutions, products and services that leverage the power of AI to implement practical, real-world product, services and solutions to extend citizens Healthy Longevity.

Sophisticated Analytical Frameworks for Precision Medicine and Longevity Diagnostics, Prognostics ... [+] and Therapeutic Benchmarking

2020 and Beyond

In 2020, following the completion of several key development milestones, the Longevity AI Consortium plans to launch an AI Longevity Accelerator Program that will serve as a much-needed bridge between startups focusing on AI for Longevity research and drug development and major UK investors. While the UKs AI and Longevity industry ecosystems are very developed individually, the number of longevity startups utilizing AI in a major way for their internal R&D is comparatively small. The potential impact presented by the synergy of these two sectors is huge. The UK government has heavily prioritized the separate sectors of AI and Longevity, including both sectors in the top 4 Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges. However, by uniting the AI and Longevity verticals in unique and convergent ways the UK could leverage the nations strengths in these industries to their maximum potential.

AI Longevity Accelerator at Kings College aims to develop an infrastructure to promote increased investments and developments in the AI for Longevity sector to provide AI for Longevity startups with relevant levels of funding. Startups selected for inclusion in the accelerator will also receive mentorship and incubation resources, and will gain access to a global network of experts in the areas of scientific R&D, business development and investment relations. The AI Accelerator will also provide startups with the tools necessary to grow, expand and evolve following their time in the Accelerator, and will equip them with the skills required to develop further through later-stage venture capital and government grants. Longevity companies that prove capable of achieving tangible results may become the next Googles, and investment firms that invest in those companies may become the SoftBanks and Vision Funds of tomorrow. AI holds enormous potential to rapidly accelerate the implementation of Longevity research and development. The establishment of the AI Longevity Consortium and AI Longevity Accelerator at Kings College has the potential to make the UK the worlds leading AI for Longevity Hub and creates an opportunity for huge advances in Longevity research which will benefit billions of people all around the world.

Click the box below for more information on the Longevity AI Consortium.

Click the box below for information on the AI Longevity Accelerator.

Click the box below for in-depth information about the Global Longevity Industry and explore a book that I co-authored with my colleague Dmitry Kaminskiy: Longevity Industry 1.0 - Defining the Biggest and Most Complex Industry in Human History.

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Leveraging AI To Accelerate Precision Health For Longevity - Forbes