In a groundbreaking advancement for the field of aging research, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health has been awarded a prestigious grant by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) under its innovative PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience (PROSPR) initiative. This pioneering project is spearheaded by Dr. Daniel Belsky, an associate professor of Epidemiology, and aims to accelerate scientific understanding of the biological hallmarks of aging with the ultimate goal of extending healthy lifespan in humans.
Despite significant increases in average life expectancy globally, the extension of healthy years—those free from chronic illnesses and age-related decline—has lagged. The prevalence of chronic diseases escalates sharply with age, posing immense challenges to healthcare systems and diminishing quality of life. The ARPA-H funded initiative seeks to disrupt this paradigm by transitioning from a reactive medical approach that treats diseases after their onset to a proactive strategy focused on prevention of biological aging and decline before clinical symptoms emerge.
Dr. Belsky, a key figure affiliated with Columbia’s Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, emphasizes the urgent need for objective and measurable biological signals that can demonstrate the efficacy of interventions targeting the aging process itself. Identification of such biomarkers would enable clinicians and researchers to assess in real-time whether treatments genuinely decelerate aging, thereby preserving health, functional independence, and quality of life in aging populations.
The five-year PROSPR program supports a landmark project known as FAST—Facilitating Aging Studies with Translational data—which represents a paradigm shift in geriatric medicine. Unlike traditional clinical trials that often focus on singular diseases or symptoms, the FAST initiative integrates and analyzes existing clinical trial datasets and biospecimens relating to medications with known geroprotective properties. This meta-analytic approach allows for the discovery of novel biomarkers that capture the multifaceted biology of aging and identify effective interventions.
FAST incorporates data from trials involving four out of five key classes of drugs prioritized for their potential to modulate fundamental aging processes: metformin, sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, and rapamycin. These pharmacological agents have been shown in preclinical studies to extend lifespan by targeting cellular and molecular pathways implicated in aging such as metabolic regulation, inflammation, and cellular senescence. Their broad-spectrum benefits in humans beyond their original therapeutic indications highlight their promise as modulators of biological aging.
Preliminary findings from analyses within the FAST framework are particularly compelling. Evidence suggests that rapamycin administration can slow ovarian aging by approximately 20%, potentially prolonging female fertility by up to five years. Additional data indicate improvements in cardiovascular biomarkers, enhancements in patient-reported outcomes relating to overall health status, and a measurable deceleration in progression to type 2 diabetes mellitus. These early results underscore FAST’s vast potential to uncover clinically meaningful effects of aging-modifying drugs.
Andrew Brack, the ARPA-H Program Manager and architect of the PROSPR initiative, underscores the essential role of biomarkers in expediting clinical research on aging. Because the aging process spans decades, clinical trials must rely on surrogate endpoints that demonstrate early biological responses to interventions. FAST’s comprehensive database and multimodal analysis pipeline provide a transformative platform to identify and validate such biomarkers, bridging a critical gap in translational geroscience.
The FAST project’s success hinges on a multidisciplinary consortium spanning multiple top-tier research institutions. Expertise ranges from aging biology and clinical pharmacology to proteomics, metabolomics, epigenetics, biostatistics, and computational biology, enabling sophisticated integration and interpretation of clinical and molecular data. Dr. Belsky serves as principal investigator while co-leads include Dr. Nir Barzilai of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Dr. Mahdi Moqri of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Columbia’s Zohn Rosen manages the project logistics and coordination.
Dr. Barzilai highlights the transformative potential of FAST to redefine how aging is measured and managed clinically. The program envisions a future in which older adults undergo routine biological age assessments, receive tailored interventions, and observe tangible rejuvenation within months. Simultaneously, pharmaceutical innovators will leverage FAST’s biomarker toolkit to accelerate the development and regulatory approval of next-generation gerotherapeutics, fundamentally altering the trajectory of healthcare for aging populations.
All data generated by FAST will be securely housed and made accessible to qualified researchers through the Columbia Data Platform (CDP), a cutting-edge cloud infrastructure operated by Redivis on Google Cloud. This data-sharing paradigm fosters open collaboration and rapid scientific discovery, positioning FAST as a global hub for aging research innovation.
Dr. Belsky reflects on the paradigm shift catalyzed by this initiative: “FAST is moving the science of aging from theoretical frameworks and animal models into actionable human biology. By harnessing data from diverse clinical trials, we have the unprecedented opportunity to pinpoint the biological signals that truly slow aging in humans—and pivot medicine toward prevention rather than reaction.”
Moreover, the project signifies a critical inflection point in geroscience research. Rather than segmenting diseases for treatment, FAST confronts the challenge of aging as a complex, systemic process. This holistic perspective is poised to redefine clinical practice in aging societies by focusing on extending the duration of healthy, functional years, thereby reducing the burden of age-associated morbidity and healthcare costs.
Originally incubated by the American Federation for Aging Research and co-led by Drs. Belsky, Barzilai, and Moqri, the FAST project includes a network of collaborators at Columbia University such as Aris Floratos in Systems Biology, Yousin Suh in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zhonghua Liu in Biostatistics, and Gary Miller in Environmental Health Sciences. Partner institutions include Duke University, Saint Luke’s Health System, and industry collaborators like NovoNordisk, OLink Proteomics, and TruDiagnostic Epigenetics, reflecting a broad coalition across academia, healthcare, and biotechnology.
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health serves as the academic home for FAST, leveraging its century-old legacy of interdisciplinary research and global public health impact. The Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center similarly contributes an integrative framework combining biosocial insights with policy and practical applications to meet the demands of an aging demographic.
This project epitomizes a new frontier in public health and preventive medicine, wherein the biological mysteries of aging are decoded and harnessed to extend healthy human longevity. By redefining how aging-related decline is measured and treated, the FAST initiative promises to usher in an era where living longer is accompanied by living better—free from the disabilities and chronic conditions that have long shadowed extra years of life.
Subject of Research: Biological hallmarks of aging; development and validation of biomarkers to measure and intervene upon the aging process in humans.
Article Title: Accelerating Healthy Aging: Columbia University’s FAST Initiative Harnesses Clinical Trial Data to Transform Geroscience
News Publication Date: February 24, 2026
Web References:
– Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health: www.mailman.columbia.edu
– Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center: aging.columbia.edu
– ARPA-H PROSPR Program: [Link to official ARPA-H PROSPR program site, if available]
Keywords: Aging biology, biomarkers, geroscience, clinical trials, metformin, rapamycin, SGLT-2 inhibitors, GLP-1 agonists, public health, preventive medicine, longevity, chronic disease prevention
Tags: aging biomarkers identificationaging resilience researchARPA-H PROSPR initiativebiological hallmarks of agingchronic disease prevention in agingColumbia University aging research grantepidemiology of agingextending healthy human lifespanhealthy aging sciencelongevity and healthspan extensionProactive Aging InterventionsRobert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center
