with Frank Madeo and Christoph Bezemek

How can we live forever - and do we even want to?

The 7th Faculty talk on 19.01.2026 brought together two personalities who do not often share the same stage: a legal scholar in dialogue with a life scientist. Together with Christoph Bezemek, MetAGE Research Director Frank Madeo shed light on what healthy aging really means - beyond the headlines, hacks and hypes.

The discussion began with a deliberately provocative question:
Can we "hack" our youth, as tech entrepreneur Brian Johnson is trying to do - by focussing our entire lives on longevity and taking almost 100 pills a day?

Frank Madeo provided a sobering scientific counterpoint:
"Every tablet with an effect also has side effects. A hundred pills can mean a hundred side effects - and we still don't know what that does to the body in the long term." 

More importantly, is this a life well lived?

If radical biohacking isn't the answer, what is?

Research points to four well-established pillars that support health across the lifespan:
diet, physical activity, sleep and social interaction.
Simple in theory, difficult in practice and supported by evidence.

So why do we still need aging research?

We want to understand how aging works - in particular, how metabolism changes over time. Only then can we go beyond general advice and develop targeted, science-based strategies. 

At MetAGE, we are investigating precisely these mechanisms in order to identify measures (such as fasting mimetics) that support healthy aging without promising immortality.

Healthy aging is more than the sum of its parts and a topic worth discussing across disciplines, generations and society as a whole.

(Summarized by Ariane Pessentheiner)