HLC’s XPRIZE research: pilot findings and the next questions

For someone in their late seventies, healthy aging is a practical idea. It can mean getting up from a chair more easily, walking with confidence and continuing to do the things that make life their own. These are the kinds of outcomes that motivate our research at Healthy Longevity Clinic.

Our work brings together two complementary directions: understanding what coordinated, personalized care can achieve, and exploring new biological approaches with research partners. An eight-week pilot in Prague examined the first. Our collaboration with Klothea Bio on Klotho research explores the second. [2] [11]

Research we are proud to support

Healthy Longevity Clinic and Klothea Bio are Longevity Tech Fund portfolio companies. Our collaboration connects clinical experience with the development of a potential Klotho mRNA therapy. In May 2025, HLC was named among the 40 XPRIZE Healthspan Milestone 1 awardees, receiving $250,000 to support the research effort. [1] [2]

Eight weeks of coordinated care

Ten people aged 71 to 84 completed our Prague pilot. The program combined nutrition and supplementation, supervised strength, aerobic and balance training, supportive therapies, coaching and wearable monitoring. We assessed participants before and after the program to see which aspects of health and function changed. [11]

The aim was to learn from the whole program. In real life, health is shaped by several factors at once, and a coordinated approach can make the work of addressing them more manageable. A pilot of this kind helps us identify promising changes and design the next study.

Three findings stood out:

Our primary study account and pilot findings give the full results. An aging-pace estimate is a research measurement; its change does not mean that participants gained or reversed a particular number of years. [11]

What we learned—and what needs a longer study

The mobility finding is especially interesting because it concerns something a person can do. The next question is whether a faster test translates into easier daily activity and whether the improvement lasts. The blood-sugar change gives us another concrete outcome to follow.

The results were not uniformly favorable. Cognitive measures, overall epigenetic-age estimates and telomere length showed no clear change. A wearable recovery score and a modeled lung-age measure moved in an unfavorable direction. Looking at the whole picture helps us choose what to monitor more closely in future work. [11]

All ten participants completed the program. No serious adverse events were reported, although some people experienced mild, temporary fatigue early in training. This is useful experience from a small group, and longer studies are needed to understand safety across a wider population.

Because the pilot had no comparison group, we cannot assign the changes solely to the program. Familiarity with a test, natural variation and other changes in daily life may also contribute. Nor can we determine which individual component helped. A controlled study can answer those questions more convincingly. [11]

A different line of research: Klotho

Klotho is a naturally occurring protein that has attracted interest for its connections with aging biology. Our collaboration with Klothea Bio explores an mRNA approach: giving cells instructions to make the protein. The proposal places this experimental approach within a broader framework of assessment, medical care and lifestyle support. [2]

This is a separate research program from the Prague pilot. The pilot's mobility and metabolic findings tell us about the combined care program that was studied; they do not establish an effect of Klotho. Human Klotho research needs to show what its own treatment can achieve and how safely it can do so.

Why XPRIZE focuses on function

XPRIZE Healthspan is a $101 million competition built around an ambitious goal: improving muscle, cognitive and immune function in older adults. Its focus gives the field a useful challenge. A treatment should do more than move an interesting laboratory number; it should help restore capabilities that tend to decline with age. [5]

The competition's reference to ten years of restored function concerns performance associated with younger ages. It is not a promise of ten additional years of life. Tests of walking, lower-body power, cognition and immune biology are intended to build a picture across several parts of health. [6]

HLC and Klothea completed a finals application in 2026. Our May 2025 award and subsequent application are steps in the research journey. The scientific conclusions still come from the studies themselves. [3]

What stronger studies can add

A comparison group shows what happens over the same period without the tested program. Random assignment helps make the groups comparable at the start. Repeated assessments then reveal whether a treatment produces a larger, more lasting improvement and whether that benefit comes with unwanted effects. These are central features of the XPRIZE finals framework. [6]

For our pilot findings, the useful next questions are straightforward: do mobility and metabolic improvements repeat in a larger group, do they persist, and do participants notice a difference in everyday life? A study should also show which abilities remain unchanged and which risks need attention.

Learning from results that challenge an idea

Research also moves forward when an expected benefit does not appear. A separate plasma-donation study involving an HLC-affiliated coauthor found no clear epigenetic rejuvenation; several aging-clock measures moved unfavorably. It studied donation, without young-plasma or albumin replacement, and was separate from our care pilot and Klotho work. [8] [10]

Those findings help refine the questions worth asking. They do not translate into years of life gained or lost, and they do not answer every question about plasma treatments. For pollutant removal, our article Can plasma donation remove PFAS and microplastics? explores a different use.

Our purpose across these projects is consistent: to understand how to help people remain capable and independent for longer. HLC’s primary study account presents the pilot in detail. The encouraging observations are a starting point for the next stage of research, with daily life as the outcome we ultimately want to improve.