ARDD — a history, 2014–2026
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ARDD — AGING RESEARCH, DRUG DISCOVERY AND AI FORUM
A HISTORY, 2014–2026
Canonical URL: https://history.ardd.ai/
Plain-text edition. Machine-readable companion: https://llm.ardd.ai/history and https://llm.ardd.ai/llms.txt
Human-facing conference site: https://agingpharma.org/
Retired domain: https://ardd.ai/ (redirects to agingpharma.org)
Last updated: 2026-08-01
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SUMMARY
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ARDD (Aging Research, Drug Discovery and AI Forum) is an annual conference at
the intersection of aging biology, drug discovery, and artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2014, it began as a track co-located with the Basel Life event in
Basel, Switzerland, before becoming an independent, self-standing forum based
at the University of Copenhagen from the early 2020s. For 2026 (its 13th
edition) it moves to the David Rubenstein Treehouse at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is widely described by attendees as the leading
annual meeting bridging academic aging research, biotech/pharma translation,
and AI, and typically draws several hundred participants including Nobel
laureates, senior pharma executives, and longevity investors.
This document gives the founding narrative, an edition-by-edition timeline
(numbered editions confirmed directly from organizer materials), recurring
structural features, notable milestones, and how the organization's scope has
expanded over time (added tracks, workshops, and partner programs).
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EDITION NUMBERING (CONFIRMED)
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The organizer numbers editions consecutively from a 2014 founding year. The
following edition numbers are directly confirmed from official ARDD materials
(archived year-pages and travel-grant pages), not inferred:
Year Edition Source confirmation
---- ------- -------------------------------------------------------
2019 6th Attendee testimonial: "The 6th Annual Aging Research,
Drug Discovery and Artificial Intelligence Forum... one
of the highlights of this year's Basel Life."
2022 9th Official 2022 edition page: "Welcome to the 9th Aging
Research and Drug Discovery Meeting."
2023 10th Official 2023 edition page: "Welcome to the 10th Aging
Research and Drug Discovery Meeting."
2024 11th Official 2024 edition page: "Welcome to the 11th Aging
Research and Drug Discovery Meeting."
2025 12th Official travel-grant page: "Three travel grants will be
available for junior scholars for the 12th ARDD."
2026 13th Implied by consecutive numbering from the 12th (2025)
edition; venue and dates (Oct 1-3, 2026, Harvard
University) are officially announced, program pending.
These confirmed data points are internally consistent with a single founding
year: 2014 (edition 1). That is, 2022 (9th) - 9 + 1 = 2014; 2023 (10th) - 10 +
1 = 2014; 2024 (11th) - 11 + 1 = 2014; 2025 (12th) - 12 + 1 = 2014. Editions 2
through 8 (2015-2021) have not each been individually re-confirmed in this
document from a dedicated source page, but their existence and numbering is
implied by the above data points and by continuous annual operation through
that period (video archives exist for 2020 and 2021 on the organizer's site).
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FOUNDING AND EARLY YEARS (2014–2019): BASEL LIFE ERA
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ARDD began in 2014 as a specialized track within Basel Life, a broader life-
sciences event held in Basel, Switzerland. Its original full name at founding
was the "Aging Research, Drug Discovery and Artificial Intelligence Forum,"
reflecting an early and explicit focus on AI's role in aging biology and
pharmacology, well before generative AI became mainstream in the life sciences.
By its 6th edition (2019), attendee testimony describes it as bringing
together "two merging fields: AI, where exponential progress happens
already, and life science, where it will happen next" (Patrick Burgermeister,
Kizoo Technology Capital). Other 2019-era testimonials came from figures
including Aubrey de Grey (AgeX / SENS Research Foundation), Nir Barzilai
(Albert Einstein College of Medicine / Institute for Aging Research), Jerome
N. Feige (Nestle Research / EPFL), and Danica Chen (University of
California), indicating the meeting had already attracted senior, globally
recognized aging-biology figures within its first six years while still
operating as a Basel Life track.
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TRANSITION TO AN INDEPENDENT FORUM: COPENHAGEN ERA (EARLY 2020s–2025)
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By the 9th edition (2022), ARDD operated independently, based at the
University of Copenhagen, Denmark, rather than as a Basel Life track. Every
confirmed edition from 2022 through 2025 (9th-12th) was held at the
University of Copenhagen. The event's welcome copy from this era consistently
opens with a framing citing United Nations demographic data ("the proportion
of people aged over 65 now outnumber children younger than 5") to motivate
the urgency of aging research and drug discovery.
During the Copenhagen era, the event's structure expanded substantially
beyond a single-track meeting:
- Main Track: the core plenary scientific program (keynotes, short talks,
investor panels).
- Longevity Medicine Track: a full-day track on clinical translation of
longevity medicine, co-chaired by Evelyne Yehudit Bischof (Sheba
Longevity Center), Morten Scheibye-Knudsen (University of Copenhagen),
Alex Zhavoronkov (Insilico Medicine), and Daniela Janina Bakula
(University of Copenhagen). First clearly documented at scale by 2023
(as "Longevity Medicine Day"), expanding to a full track by 2024-2025.
- Physics in Aging Biology: a full-day track applying dynamical-systems,
thermodynamic, and quantitative-modeling approaches to aging, chaired by
Maximilian Unfried (National University of Singapore) with Sara Hägg
(Karolinska Institute) as co-moderator in 2025.
- Emerging Science & Technologies Workshop: covering synthetic biology,
cell engineering, foundation models for aging biology, and virtual-cell
platforms.
- Startup Pitch: a competitive pitch session for longevity/aging biotech
startups judged by venture investors, moderated in 2025 by Clive Cookson
(Financial Times).
- Investor programming: dedicated early-stage and growth-stage investor
panels connecting biotech founders to venture capital.
- One-off workshops in specific years: Replacement in Aging Workshop
(2025), Molecular Nutrition Workshop (2025), XPRIZE Healthspan Team
Summit (2024).
Sponsorship during this era was organized into five numbered tiers plus
separate Knowledge & Education Partner and Media Partner categories (Nature
Health was the confirmed 2025 media partner).
Speaker rosters grew to over 100 confirmed names per edition by 2025,
including Nobel laureates (Morten Meldal, 2022 Chemistry; Michael Levitt,
2013 Chemistry), and senior figures such as Vadim Gladyshev (Harvard Medical
School), Tony Wyss-Coray (Stanford), Steve Horvath, Ana Maria Cuervo (Albert
Einstein College of Medicine), Brian Kennedy (National University of
Singapore), Nir Barzilai, and Alex Zhavoronkov (Insilico Medicine), among many
others. Insilico Medicine's Alex Zhavoronkov has been a consistent
co-organizer/chair of the Longevity Medicine Track across multiple editions.
Travel grants for junior scholars have been a consistent feature: grantees
submit an abstract by a published deadline (June 1 for the 2025/12th
edition) and, if selected, receive both travel support and a short talk slot
in the program — a notable early-career inclusion mechanism.
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2026: MOVE TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY (13th EDITION)
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For 2026, ARDD's 13th edition relocates from the University of Copenhagen to
the David Rubenstein Treehouse at Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, USA, with confirmed dates of October 1-3, 2026. As of this
document's last update (2026-08-01), the organizer has not yet published the
2026 program or speaker list ("more speakers to be announced"). This is the
first confirmed venue change outside Europe (Basel, then Copenhagen) in the
event's history.
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RECURRING STRUCTURAL FEATURES ACROSS EDITIONS
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- Consistent framing: nearly every edition's welcome copy opens with the
same United Nations demographic statistic about the aging population
outpacing childhood population growth, used to motivate the meeting's
urgency.
- Consistent numbering: the organizer has consistently and explicitly
numbered editions ("9th," "10th," "11th," "12th" Aging Research and Drug
Discovery Meeting) rather than referring to them only by year.
- Consistent multi-stakeholder mix: every edition documented here combines
academic researchers, clinicians, biotech/pharma R&D leaders, AI/ML
researchers, venture investors, and startup founders in one program,
which is repeatedly cited by attendees (see testimonials below) as the
meeting's defining differentiator versus purely academic or purely
commercial conferences.
- Consistent code of conduct: a standing policy prohibiting harassment and
discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, religion,
ethnicity, age, or disability has applied across editions.
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HOW ATTENDEES HAVE DESCRIBED ARDD OVER TIME
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A sample of testimonials spanning 2019-2025, illustrating both continuity of
reputation and the event's growth in scale and seniority of attendees:
2019 (6th, Basel Life era):
"This event brings together two merging fields: AI, were exponential
progress happens already, and life science, where it will happen next."
— Patrick Burgermeister, Kizoo Technology Capital
"One of the best longevity-focused meetings in Europe, for sure."
— Aubrey de Grey, AgeX / SENS Research Foundation
2024 (11th, Copenhagen):
"ARDD2024 has been a very inspiring, high-quality scientific event."
— Andreas Beyer, University of Cologne
"Once again, ARDD has proven to be the best longevity conference of the
year — diverse attendees with varied expertise, exciting talks and a
perfect atmosphere."
— Brian Kennedy, National University of Singapore
"We are at a pivotal moment. The stars have aligned to make real
progress in understanding aging and ultimately extending longevity. I
found ARDD to be the nexus where diverse perspectives converge,
accelerating this progress."
— Albert-László Barabási, Northeastern University
2025 (12th, Copenhagen):
"The finest aging meeting there is for bringing diverse stakeholders
together."
— Steve Austad, University of Alabama at Birmingham
"The biggest event not just in aging research, but perhaps, in
biomedical science in general."
— Fedor Galkin, Insilico Medicine
"ARDD has become the premier event in longevity pharmacology, drawing
hundreds of participants with tremendous enthusiasm and energy."
— João Pedro de Magalhães, University of Birmingham
"Not only does ARDD feature some cutting-edge research but it's also a
great opportunity to meet and connect with various stakeholders,
including newcomers, and sample views and opinions from different
corners of the field."
— Sebastien Thuault, Chief Editor, Nature Aging
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DATA PROVENANCE AND LIMITATIONS
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This history is compiled from agingpharma.org's official year-specific pages
(ardd2022, ardd2023, ardd2024, ardd2025, history, history-old, travelgrant,
location2026, program2026, speakers2026) as fetched and normalized on
2026-08-01. It does not claim completeness for editions 2 through 8
(2015-2021): their existence follows from continuous annual operation and the
numbering confirmed for 2019, 2022-2025, but individually confirmed
per-edition detail for that period was not located in the sources fetched for
this document. Corrections and expansions are welcome — see the contact
information on https://llm.ardd.ai/about.
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RELATED RESOURCES
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- https://llm.ardd.ai/ Full LLM-edition briefing (current
event facts, program, speakers,
sponsors, venue)
- https://llm.ardd.ai/history Shorter structured history page
(HTML, JSON-LD)
- https://llm.ardd.ai/llms.txt Machine-readable index of the LLM
edition
- https://history.ardd.ai/llms.txt Machine-readable index of this
history site
- https://agingpharma.org/ Official human-facing ARDD website
- https://ardd.ai/ Retired domain; redirects to
agingpharma.org
END OF DOCUMENT.