After two days of scientific discussion on the theme of Aging and Longevity, the GIMM Fest opened its doors to the public. “We wanted to broaden the reflection by opening it up to society,” said GIMM’s executive director, Maria Mota.

As the auditorium gradually filled, outside children, young people, parents, and grandparents walked through the exhibition “From Cells to Society – The History of Aging.” Some panels sparked more conversations between the young and the old, especially the one showing the longest-living animals — the Greenland shark, which can live up to 392 years, and the bowhead whale, which can reach 211.

Data on Portuguese demographics, collected by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, painted a portrait of the national population: more than two million people aged 65 or over, more than one million aged 75 or over, and about three thousand centenarians.

GIMM researchers and professors at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, Joana Neves and Cláudia Faria (also a pediatric neurosurgeon at Santa Maria Hospital), summarized for the public the main messages conveyed during the two scientific days, which sought to answer two key questions: Why do we age? And which therapies are the most promising to help prevent aging and thereby delay age-related chronic diseases?

Supported by drawings made in real time during the scientific sessions by illustrator Cirenia Arias, they discussed the theories scientists have developed over time to understand how cells age and cause organs to lose their function.

On one point, everyone agreed, the two scientists emphasized: aging is a common risk factor for many chronic diseases that affect society. In the future, ideally, we will move toward a unified medicine that tackles aging itself as a way of preventing these different diseases all at once.

Another point of debate was the cellular changes that occur as we age. Over time, cells lose their ability to repair genetic material, and the body can no longer maintain balance: the immune system weakens, chronic inflammation sets in, and organs no longer recover as they once did. Therapies based on cellular reprogramming have been gaining ground since scientists began to focus on a seemingly simple idea: babies are not born old.

The possibility of mimicking what happens in the human body when one leads a healthy lifestyle—through diet, physical exercise, and quality sleep—is also part of the attempts to slow down aging.

“Molecular clocks have been scientists’ obsession for the last ten years,” Joana Neves pointed out. Used to measure biological age (the body’s age), as distinct from chronological age, researchers are now building collections of such assessments to better understand how aging manifests in each individual. Because no two people are alike, neither in health nor in disease.

In 2026, the GIMM Festival will return, from September 17 to 19, with a focus on Microbes. One thing we already know: they’re not all bad.