The million-molecule challenge: a moonshot project to rapidly advance longevity intervention discovery

Area of Science:

• Gerontology and preventative medicine
• Biotechnology and drug discovery
• Model organism research

Background:

• Targeting aging is a key frontier in 21st-century medicine.
• Development of novel longevity interventions has slowed.
• Existing methods for drug screening lack high-throughput capabilities for whole-animal studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a high-throughput system for accelerating longevity intervention discovery.
• To introduce the "million-molecule challenge" for quantitative assessment of 1,000,000 interventions.
• To highlight the utility of C. elegans and AI-driven platforms in this endeavor.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing the model organism C. elegans for drug screening.
• Implementing automated data capture and analysis technologies.
• Leveraging a robotics and AI platform (WormBot-AI) for high-throughput assessment.

Main Results:

• The proposed approach enables unbiased drug screening for longevity.
• The WormBot-AI platform can assess interventions at a low cost per animal.
• The "million-molecule challenge" aims to screen 1,000,000 interventions within five years.

Conclusions:

• High-throughput systems are crucial for advancing longevity research.
• The combination of C. elegans, robotics, and AI offers a viable path to accelerate drug discovery for healthy longevity.
• This initiative has the potential to significantly impact preventative medicine.