BERKELEY, CALIF. — Jamie Justice left her tenure-track position at Wake Forest University to become executive director of XPRIZE Healthspan, a $101 million global competition launched in 2026 to validate anti-aging treatments through clinical trials. The initiative aims to identify therapeutic approaches that can restore muscle, cognition, and immune function in older adults.

XPRIZE Healthspan was created to address a gap in verifying whether anti-aging interventions actually work. “There’s a booming market for slowing aging, but there’s no way to tell if [treatments] work,” said Jamie Justice, executive director of XPRIZE Healthspan. Ten teams were selected from a pool of 40 applicants in 2026 to participate in the competition. Each team must conduct yearlong randomized controlled clinical trials, with the grand prize winner to be announced in 2030.

The approaches under investigation include exercise regimens, senolytics, and personalized medicine based on biomarkers. Senolytics are drugs designed to target damaged “zombie” cells that accumulate with age. Justice advocates for a big-tent approach to anti-aging research that incorporates diverse scientific strategies. She criticized “purely scammy” companies for giving longevity research a bad name but emphasized the importance of openness in scientific evaluation. Justice remains an adjunct assistant professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest.

“I think, as scientists, we have to be really mindful to not turn into gatekeepers,” Justice said. Her move to lead XPRIZE Healthspan reflects a commitment to creating a transparent, evidence-based pathway for validating therapies that could extend human healthspan.