全球健康长寿“X奖”宣布40支晋级团队，他们的研究或将影响全人类的预期健康寿命。图片来源：Abraham Gonzalez Fernandez—Getty Images
你知道吗，这场以长寿为主题的比赛，已经进入第二轮了。
这场竞赛长达7年之久，参赛团队只有一个目标，那就是想方设法将人类的寿命延长10年以上，同时让人们健康地老去。
2023年，“X奖”基金会创始人兼执行主席、企业家、未来学家彼得・戴曼迪斯斥资1.01亿美元举办了这场长寿大赛。在此之后，全球58个国家的600多支团队报名参赛，并提出了各自的方案，包括各种医疗设备、生活方式干预和生物疗法等。如今，大赛已经为排名在前40名的团队各提供了25万美元资金，以帮助他们在临床试验中验证各自的方案。
“X奖”长寿竞赛执行董事杰米・贾斯蒂斯博士在接受《财富》采访时表示：“我们的确是在全球范围内推动大家加快这一进程，好将真正的长寿方案提供给需要的人。”
参赛团队来自全球各地，其中既有学生，也有高校科研人员，甚至还有一位诺奖得主。他们都在角逐这份高达8100万美元的天价奖金。
一支来自马来西亚的高中生团队提出了一种社区化的长寿方案，内容包括成立社区老年鼓乐队等等。还有一个团队正在测试一些热门的糖尿病和减重药物（包括GLP-1类药物），看它们能否起到延年益寿的效果。另一个团队正在研究二甲双胍等药物能否预防认知能力下降。根所赛事规则，优胜者必须在2030年前，通过至少一年的临床试验，证明他们的疗法可以提高老年人的肌肉水平、认知能力和免疫功能。
戴曼迪斯在一份新闻通稿中表示：“衰老研究的下一个突破，有可能来自任何一个地方的科学家和创业者。我们之所以要提供这个大奖，就是要在全球点燃一场健康长寿的革命。而这些晋级团队正在引领这场革命。这场赛事不仅加快了相关研究的进展，也挑战了社会对衰老问题的传统认识。”
贾斯蒂斯在接受采访时表示，大赛评审团由领先的科学家和研究人员组成，他们会评估各个参赛团队是否“展现了真正的创新，是否可以在涉及人体衰老过程的问题上带来机制性的突破”。参赛团队必须证明他们已经做好了进行临床试验的准备，并且要有坚实证据表明，他们所采取的疗法或者干预措施能够被推广到更广泛的人群当中。
虽然现在人们的寿命越来越长了，但平均而言，人们的寿命和健康生活年限之间仍然存在着不小的差距，这个差距甚至可能长达10年。而这场大赛的目的就是要缩小这一差距，延长人们健康生活的年限。
贾斯蒂斯表示：“我们正在研究那些积极的而且能够推广到更大人群的方案，这样我们就可以在更高的人口层面去解决健康生活年限的问题。”
据悉，各参赛队需要在明年4月前提交临床试验数据。组委会将在2026年7月前选出10支进入决赛的队伍。最终大奖得主将于2030年选出。（财富中文网）
译者：朴成奎
The contestants in a race to extend life are on their second lap.
In a seven-year global competition, teams are rushing to discover novel therapeutics and interventions that can extend human life by a decade and help people age well.
In 2023, Peter Diamandis, an entrepreneur, self-proclaimed futurist, and founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, launched the $101 million healthspan competition. Since then, over 600 teams from 58 countries have put their ideas in the ring, including medical devices, lifestyle interventions, and biological therapies. Today, the competition awarded each of the top 40 teams $250,000 to help them test their hypotheses in clinical trials.
“We’re really pushing at a global scale for people to accelerate the process, so we can get real solutions in the hands of people who need them,” Jamie Justice, PhD, executive director of XPRIZE Healthspan, tells Fortune.
Teams from all over the globe, composed of students, university researchers, and even a Nobel Prize winner, are competing for the coveted prize, which will amount to $81 million.
One team of high schoolers from Malaysia pitched a community-based solution that includes facilitating drum circles with older adults. Another team is testing the potential life-extending benefits of popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs, GLP-1s. Still another is examining whether the drug Metformin can help prevent cognitive decline. By 2030, the winner will have shown that their therapy can restore muscle, cognitive, and immune function in a one-year clinical trial of older adults.
“The next breakthrough in aging could come from scientists and entrepreneurs, anywhere. With this prize, we’re igniting a global healthspan revolution, and these semifinalists are leading the charge,” said Diamandis, in a press release. “This competition isn’t just accelerating progress, it’s challenging our society’s beliefs in what’s possible when it comes to aging.”
Judges made up of leading researchers and scientists in the field assessed teams based on whether they illustrated “really solid innovation [on a] potential breakthrough that could affect all of the processes that underlie how we age,” says Justice. Teams had to show a readiness for clinical trials with strong evidence of an intervention that can be scaled to the broader population.
While people are living longer, there is still a decade-long gap, on average, between how well people live and how well they live in good health. This competition is hoping to reduce the gap and extend how long people live in good health.
“We’re looking at solutions that can be proactive and can be generalized to a greater population, so that we can begin to address that gap at a population level,” Justice says.
Teams will submit data from their clinical trials by April of next year, ahead of XPRIZE selecting the top ten finalists in July of 2026, followed by the grand prize winner selected in 2030.