Norn Group is a
do tank for longevity
We think and act to make biomedical research yield more healthy years of life for all.
Norn Group’s mission is to maximize the probability that by 2060 we have interventions that will let a 60 year old live for another 60 years without a decline in health and function.
We ensure there is a comprehensive strategy to produce interventions that achieve our mission, and implement technical plans to resolve bottlenecks along the way.
The Big Picture
Where do healthy years actually come from? Not from any single discovery, but from system of science and development. Ideas flow in, medicines come out, and in between are a dozen stages where progress can stall. Map the components. Measure the flows. Find the constraints.
Once you see the system whole, the questions become concrete: How many good ideas are entering? How many are lost at each stage, and why? Where is throughput lowest? This is how we decide what to work on, and how we know if it's working..
More ideas come from more good people.
Funding the first clear clinical success will transform the field. When the promise of impacting human lives becomes demonstrated fact, attention, talent, and capital will follow.
But we don't have to wait. The longevity field is small enough that a single grant program can still reshape what gets studied, and a handful of new researchers can open entirely new directions. The efforts we make to grow the field today will compound for longer, and make the first success happen faster.
Addressing bottlenecks reveal another bottleneck.
One bottleneck follows another. More funding eventually requires more talent, more talent requires better ways to evaluate early findings. The sequence is predictable, so we can stay ahead of it.
We build the infrastructure to evaluate, filter, and translate ideas before the backlog builds up. Staying ahead of future constraints means sustained momentum for the field.
Would you like to...
Watch this thorough seminar on the biology of aging and approaches to treating it: “The Science of Aging”
Read a thorough analysis of societal benefits to treating aging:
“Silver Linings”
Go through our overview of where healthy years of life come from.
And subscribe to our newsletter, Longevity Industrialized, for additional overviews and explainers.
Watch this talk going through numbers on drivers of longevity progress.
For an interactive overview of all the pieces defining current progress, look here…
Check out deep dives in our substack, like how to design human longevity trials.
Explore projects critical to rapid progress.
To support Norn Group's work, head to our Impact page
If you're already working on longevity, apply to the Nexus community
Watch this thorough seminar on the biology of aging and approaches to treating it: “The Science of Aging”
Read a thorough analysis of societal benefits to treating aging: “Silver Linings”
Go through our overview of where healthy years of life come from.
And subscribe to our newsletter, Longevity Industrialized, for additional overviews and explainers.
Watch this talk going through numbers on drivers of longevity progress.
For an interactive overview of all the pieces defining current progress, look here…
Check out deep dives in our substack, like how to design human longevity trials.
Explore projects critical to rapid progress.
To support Norn Group's work, head to our Impact page
If you're already working on longevity, apply to the Nexus community
Impact
Over 200 papers trace back to Impetus Grants, and more than two dozen labs entered longevity research through our funding.
Our Apprenticeship led to two startups, General Control, and Becoming, that so far raised >100x the program's cost.
We've run symposia and roundtables that mobilize and coordinate efforts to solve key challenges like biomarkers.
Progress takes people, plans, and patrons. Getting all three in one place takes luck, or deliberate effort.
We find and engage talented people, put together plans to address key bottlenecks, and make opportunities legible to patrons.
We're hands-on for critical projects: Some we run ourselves, others we find the team and funding for and stay engaged to get the outcomes the field needs.
And in the background we continuously add talent and support for new ideas, to help the field support progress.
How Norn operates
Key focus areas:
Industrializing longevity
Longevity science is making real progress, but it remains scattered: academic labs running exploratory studies with no clear line to drug development, no standardized way to measure if an intervention actually slows aging, no business model that rewards what matters. So the field stays underfunded despite enormous potential.
This is how you turn a cause into an industry: Make aging measurable, make success rewarding, and the flywheel starts turning. Our job is to build it and give it the first push.
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Start things we’ll need in a decade
A decade of data can't be made in a day. Some efforts will inevitably take a long time, e.g. studies tracking humans over decades or training new talent. And if we want AI to aid our field we need to generate the data to feed it. Seeing the big picture lets us identify future bottlenecks to progress and make sure these projects start as soon as possible, while planning ahead to enable a wide range of future advances (e.g. collecting extra blood samples, or ensuring that consent forms allow recontacting participants).
Our Programs and Efforts
Funding Aging Research…
Impetus Grants has deployed ~$34M across 145 projects, over three rounds since 2021.
Ambitious science. We fund work that could change the trajectory of the field, not incremental additions to existing knowledge.
Leveraged impact. We focus on funding work that wouldn't happen otherwise.
Efficient resourcing. Applications are short and decisions come in three weeks. Organizational overhead has been ~1.1%.
Filling the well
Longevity is a young field that needs more talent to mature. Building a productive pipeline of healthy years requires people who see the challenges clearly, add new perspectives, and act on what they see.
Norn runs multiple talent programs to continuously expand the bench of high-quality people motivated by longevity.
Nexus exists to accelerate good people working hard on longevity. Weekly calls focused on moving forward concrete projects, collaborative deep dives merging diverse expertise, in a community with a high bar for engagement and talent.
Stay informed:
Longevity Industrialized by Norn, is the main outlet for our analyses of the field, science deep-dives, and news about progress and programs.
Featured Pieces:
“Norn Group takes a panoramic view of progress in longevity, looking beyond research results to the dynamics determining whether, and how fast, research translates into human benefit.”
- Martin Borch Jensen, Founder & President