The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), together with six global partners spanning more than 50 countries and territories, today announced the recipients of the 2025 Healthy Longevity Catalyst Awards. Part of the NAM’s Healthy Longevity Global Competition, these awards celebrate cutting-edge research and entrepreneurship aimed at advancing breakthroughs in the field of healthy longevity. This multi-year, multi-phase international challenge encourages bold, transformative ideas through three stages of support — Catalyst, Accelerator, and Grand Prize.
This year, the NAM received a record-breaking 662 submissions from U.S.-based applicants and selected 15 submissions to receive Catalyst Awards (with principal investigators noted below). Each recipient will receive $50,000 USD in seed funding to help propel their innovative ideas forward:
- Breaking the Inflammation-Senescence Cycle: A Targeted Multimodal Approach to Extend Healthspan
Yori Endo, Mass General Brigham - Digital Care Team for AD Risk Assessment: Integrating Retinal Biomarkers, RWD, and AI-Driven Analysis for Early Detection
Yu Huang, Indiana University - Rejuvenating the Aging Immune System by Targeting Aged Hematopoietic Stem Cells
Siddhartha Jaiswal, Stanford School of Medicine, Department of Pathology - Smart Assisted Geriatric Encounters (SAGE): An AI-Powered Home Visit Companion to Assist Aging in Place
Lauren Bangerter, Health Economics and Aging Research Institute, MedStar Health Research Institute - ACILIA
Tony Ma, Benten Technologies, Inc. - Piloting Social Prescribing for Elderly Patients Experiencing Loneliness
Alan Siegel, Social Prescribing USA - Large Scale Foodborne pathogen surveillance system
Digvijay Singh, Drizzle Health - Decoding Resilience: AI-Driven Imaging to Extend Mobility and Strength in Aging
Rachel Surowiec, Purdue University - Design of mitochondrial precision therapeutics through an AI-guided synthetic biology approach to enhance myocyte resilience and durability
Mariëlle van Kooten, Powerhouse Biology, Inc. - Design of wearable, non-invasive system for sleep enhancement
Huiliang Wang, University of Texas at Austin - Precision Nutrition for Longevity
Angela Zivkovic, UC Davis - CAR-microglia for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis
Lawson Brian The Scintillon Institute - Reversing Muscle Atrophy and Metabolic Decline with Multi-active Secretomes
Hans Keirstead, Immunis, Inc. - Resolving the combinatorial and cumulative human blood virome
Caleb Lareau, Memorial Sloan Kettering - Democratizing AI-Driven Biological Aging Insights via Routine Medical Imaging and Laboratory Biomarkers
Paul Yi, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
The 2025 Catalyst Awards drew applications from innovators worldwide, with individuals and teams across science, medicine, technology, and other fields proposing bold ideas to extend the human healthspan. Awardees were selected for the originality and transformative potential of their concepts.
Launched by the NAM in 2019, the Healthy Longevity Global Competition is coordinated across a network of international partners, each running a regional or national program. The 2025 cycle marks the final round of the Catalyst Awards, paving the way for the Grand Prize phase in 2026, when Catalyst Awardees worldwide will be invited to compete for NAM’s $1.5 million Grand Prize to further advance their groundbreaking project. Over the past six years, the NAM and its global partners have awarded nearly $40 million to support more than 700 projects through the Healthy Longevity Global Competition.
“We are thrilled to celebrate this milestone year for the Healthy Longevity Global Competition,” said NAM president Victor J. Dzau. “As we conclude the final Catalyst Awards cycle and look ahead to the Grand Prize phase in 2026, we are inspired by the creativity and determination of innovators worldwide. Their bold ideas are laying the foundation for transformative breakthroughs that will help people everywhere live healthier for longer.”
Other global organizations that issued Catalyst Awards include Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences; EIT Health of the European Union; Ministry of Health and National Research Foundation of Singapore; Research Grants Council, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China; National Agency for Research and Development of Chile; and the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development.
The Healthy Longevity Global Competition has received support from Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC; John and Valerie Rowe; Martine Rothblatt and United Therapeutics Corp.; Anthony J. Yun and Kimberly A. Bazar as well as the Yun Family Foundation; the John A. Hartford Foundation; the Bia-Echo Foundation, and Next50 Foundation, in addition to commitments from the global collaborator (Catalyst Phase) and Accelerator Phase sponsor organizations.
