NOVATO, Calif., March 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Buck Institute for Research on Aging today announced the launch of Healthspan Horizons, a new initiative designed to transform how healthspan—the years of life spent in good health—is measured, understood, and extended.
While people are living longer, many of those additional years are marked by chronic disease and functional decline. Healthspan has not kept pace with lifespan. A growing body of research shows how health trajectories are modifiable—but progress has been limited by fragmented data systems and a lack of shared infrastructure to measure healthspan coherently and responsibly.
Healthspan Horizons addresses this gap by building a federated research platform that links multi-modal, real-world data—such as wearables, sleep, activity, nutrition, and laboratory testing—with deeper biological discovery studies led by the Buck. By connecting diverse longitudinal data streams under ethical governance and privacy-preserving standards, the platform aims to generate interpretable healthspan trajectories and earlier signals of disease risk.
“Extending healthy life is increasingly within reach,” said Eric Verdin, MD, President and CEO of the Buck Institute. “What we need now is infrastructure that allows us to apply the science of aging responsibly and at scale. Healthspan Horizons positions the Buck to help lead that next chapter.”
The initiative uses responsible artificial intelligence grounded in decades of aging biology research to integrate complex signals across time. Dense, longitudinal datasets—where multiple measurements are captured from the same individuals over years—allow researchers to detect subtle patterns of resilience and early divergence from healthy aging well before debilitating disease emerges.
Rather than centralizing data ownership, Healthspan Horizons operates through a federated model. Approved analyses can run across partner environments without requiring institutions or individuals to relinquish control of their data. This architecture supports collaboration while preserving data stewardship, privacy, and consent.
“Most people don’t just want a longer life—they want more years of energy, strength, and independence,” said Nathan Price, PhD, Professor at the Buck Institute and Co-Founder of Healthspan Horizons. “What’s been missing is a way to responsibly connect deep, long-term health data and apply rigorous AI-accelerated science to understand what truly drives healthy aging. Healthspan Horizons is designed to make that possible.”
The platform invites participation from researchers, clinicians, health systems, wellness partners, employers, and individuals interested in advancing prevention-focused models of health. By defining shared measures of healthspan and translating longitudinal data into actionable insights, the initiative aims to support earlier intervention, functional longevity, and new models of value grounded in healthy years gained.
The full Healthspan Horizons White Paper, Bridging Wellness & Clinical Science: A Federated Healthspan Data Framework for the 21st-Century Longevity Economy, is available at healthspanhorizons.org/whitepaper.
About Healthspan Horizons
Healthspan Horizons is a Buck Institute–based initiative building shared infrastructure for healthspan science through federated data frameworks, interpretable intelligence, and ethical governance.
About the Buck Institute for Research on Aging
The Buck Institute is the world’s first independent biomedical research institution devoted solely to the science of aging and age-related disease.
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