Project description

Will medicine be able to slow down the aging process in the future?

Even in Germany, deciphering the biological aging process is now considered a future field of biomedical innovation. There is hope that a better understanding of molecular and cellular aging could open up new possibilities for treating and preventing age-related diseases. Among other things, biological aging research (biogerontology) holds out the prospect of a new principle of intervention: biological aging should be slowed down medically. Based on the assumption that biological ageing causes diseases in old age, it is the idea not to treat diseases but to combat the cause of various age-related diseases. This is a strategy that promises greater success in finding therapies as opposed to the alternative of searching for a different treatment option for each and every disease.

Is a slowing of the aging process desirable?

The design of future aging medicine poses not only scientific and medical but also ethical, legal and social questions: Would a slowing of the aging process actually be good for both the individual and society? Would everyone benefit from a longer, healthy life expectancy? How does biogerontological understanding of aging affect our perception of aging and how do we deal with aging itself? None of these issues has been discussed to its full extent in German-speaking countries.

Present information & competences for an appropriate, ethically competent discourse

In order to complement the development of this future field with appropriate and ethically competent criticism, specific knowledge and competence is necessary. For this reason, an interdisciplinary discourse module entitled “Ethics of Biogerontology”, which focuses on competence and argumentation skills, is being developed as part of the ELSA* project. This is being tested as part of eight discourse projects with students of medicine, social gerontology, philosophy, biogerontology and education as well as with seniors. In addition to academic publications on the topic, the teaching concept will be published as a manual for instructors.

* ELSA stands for Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects