Has the time come to get more serious about the effort to slow human ageing? The advocates of the longevity dividend believe it has.1 On 12 September 2006 the not-for-profit citizen advocacy organisation Alliance for Aging Research held a Capitol Hill symposium entitled “Going for the longevity dividend: scientific goals for the world’s aging populations.” This campaign calls on Congress to invest $3bn (£1.5bn; €2bn) annually into understanding the biology of ageing. That would amount to about 1% of the current Medicare budget.

In an era where media headlines are dominated by the war on terror and global warming, and much of the world’s population live in conditions of poverty and disease, it might seem insensitive and unfair to suggest that we should divert more scarce public funding into tackling ageing. But such a knee jerk reaction can be overcome once you consider the science and ethics behind the proposal.