youtube.com/live/brjCi53W02M
Today, Sunday, June 14, 2026, at 1 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, watch a compilation stream of four presentations from the May 3, 2026, sessions at the University of California, Berkeley Conference on Aging and Longevity (BerkeleyCAL), hosted by Professor Steven A. Garan, Director of Bioinformatics at the Center for Research and Education on Aging.
These presentations focus on the societal, economic, and advocacy aspects of the field of longevity and anti-aging and range from comprehensive overviews of the longevity sector to approaches for improving the health of the public and catalyzing scientific breakthroughs. Speakers in this stream include Scott Summit, Brian Wang (
@nextbigfuture), Laurence Ion (
@longevion), and Karl R. Pfleger (
@KarlPfleger).
This is the first of multiple streams that the U.S. Transhumanist Party is compiling in order to bring the proceedings of the BerkeleyCAL to a wider audience.
Presentations include question-and-answer sessions, where I asked several in-depth questions and received thoughtful answers from the speakers.
Members of the public will be able to post questions and comments in the live YouTube chat.
Scott Summit of Ethereal Matter, Inc. –
ethereal-space.org/– presents a robotic solution designed to combat the global health crisis caused by sedentary lifestyles by gamifying fitness through immersive VR experiences. His platform utilizes motion capture and advanced robotics to create personalized, engaging, and physically challenging environments that encourage users to exercise consistently. By leveraging the same technology that drives sedentary gaming addiction, this system aims to bridge the gap between entertainment and preventative health for all ages. The Salon stream also includes some brief footage that I captured of one of the VR worlds within Ethereal Matter’s MEK exercise machine.
Brian Wang of NextBigFuture –
nextbigfuture.com/– highlights the San Francisco Bay Area as a global powerhouse for both biotech and longevity research, noting its immense concentration of companies, funding, and expertise. He explains that the longevity sector is growing rapidly, with significant backing from billionaires funding major ventures. Finally, he emphasizes the potential public health and economic benefits of longevity technologies, suggesting they could mirror the transformative, large-scale impact of recent weight-loss treatments.
Lawrence Ion discusses his mission to accelerate longevity research by building a semi-autonomous city, Viva City –
viva.city/– designed to circumvent bureaucratic hurdles and overregulation in traditional medical science. He argues for a decentralized, "bottom-up" approach—leveraging communities like VitaDAO and experimental pop-up villages—to foster innovation and rapidly bring life-saving therapies to market. Through this initiative, Ion aims to establish a new legal and regulatory sandbox that empowers individuals with the freedom to pursue advanced longevity interventions more safely and efficiently than current systems allow.
Dr. Karl R. Pfleger of
AgingBiotech.info –
agingbiotech.info/ – investor and author with a rigorously systematic approach, presents a comprehensive overview of the aging and longevity field, emphasizing the shift to treating aging as a manageable pathology through the Geroscience Hypothesis. He analyzes the current status of the sector, noting that while the pipeline of FDA-approved aging therapeutics is just beginning to emerge, there is a clear, data-backed trajectory of future growth. Finally, Pfleger distinguishes between two primary research strategies—broadly slowing aging through monotherapies and the divide-and-conquer rejuvenation approach.
View the slides for Karl Pfleger’s presentation – “Motivation for, status of, path to eliminating aging”:
docs.google.com/presentation…
The BerkeleyCAL was hosted at the University of California, Berkeley, in Stanley Hall, and was organized by Dr. Michael Conboy, Dr. Steven A. Garan, Dr. Nuno R. B. Martins, and Dr. Anthony T. Iavarone, with significant assistance from Melissa King and Bernard Siegel of the Healthspan Action Coalition:
healthspanaction.org/.