The Science of Aging
By Charlotte Stace
Can scientific advances transform our perspective on beauty, vulnerability, and the passage of time? These are key questions that researcher Benedetta Bolognesi and philosopher Begoña Román come to tackle. Slowing down the aging processes is one of humanity’s oldest obsessions, and these thinkers are interested in looking at what happens when longer lives move from fantasy towards biological possibility.
Bolognesi leads a research team at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalunya, where she studies proteins, genetics and age-related diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Román, meanwhile, is a University of Barcelona philosophy professor and specialist in applied ethics. Together they explore how advances in ageing research might preserve health, but also complicate ideas around beauty and what it means to grow old.
Part of the The Cult of Beauty programme, the conversation goes beyond clickbait headlines to ask trickier questions. If science helps us live longer, who benefits, what changes socially, and will our obsession with youth finally loosen its grip?