There are 7,577,130,400 people in the world (as of June 2020). Aging affects 100% of the population. Although it hasn't been considered a disease yet, the fact that it is a condition that leads to other diseaes, can't be ignored.

Atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and Alzheimer's disease are only some examples of age-associated diseases that surely affect millions of people worldwide.

On a global level, the 85-and-over population is projected to increase 351 percent between 2010 and 2050, compared to a 188 percent increase for the population aged 65 or older and a 22 percent increase of the population under age 65. (World Health Organization)

An important point to highlight when trying to extend human lifespan is that the main purpose is not only extending the years that a person lives, but the years that the person lives healthily. To explain this, some experts have introduced the concept "healthspan" which means the years that a person lives with health.

Therefore, concerns regarding spending more money to "maintain" people alive even more years should not be worrying. On the contrary, treating aging as a disease itself can be a wonderful opportunity to rethink the healthcare system.

Longevity experts suggest that aging is the "mother of all diseases" and that we probably haven't been tackling some problems from their root cause. The so called age-related diseases mentioned above are expected to be even prevented if aging itself is address in the first place.

Doing this, the healthcare system's budget for many diseases wouldn't feel so tight. In other words, elderly people wouldn't need so much care (concerning their physical health) because the risk for age-related diseases could be prevented by looking after the hallmarks of aging at an early stage.

The Hallmarks of aging are a concept that refers to the changes made at the celular and molecular level when aging occurs. These are 9 and include: genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication.

Several researchers have identified the potential of genes called sirtuins to expand organism's lifespan. Studies in organisms like yeast, fruit flies or mice are commonly done but there haven't been many studies on actual human cells. This is why the purpose of this research project is to focus on a certain cell line and measure its epigenetic clock after doing the activartion of sirutins. The results would be used as a proof of concept. However, further studies in complete organisms would need to be made before a conclusion is established.