Breaking Into Longevity Isn’t Obvious
Lessons from two Xplore Program cohorts + applications open for 2026!
Every winter, we open applications for the Xplore Program, the aging and longevity biotech fellowship designed to onboard early-career professionals into the field through educational materials, workshops and expert talks, and practical experiences in longevity companies.
Since January 2025, the longevity field has seen new funding rounds, more structured company formation. For example, longevity biotech NewLimit raised a $130 million Series B to expand its work on epigenetic reprogramming therapies targeting fundamental aging processes. GlycanAge secured €7.4 million in funding to scale its glycan-based biological age diagnostics and bring them into routine healthcare. Companies like Insilico Medicine and BioAge Labs went public, while Life Biosciences received FDA clearance to begin the first human clinical study of partial epigenetic reprogramming.
From the outside, longevity markets are growing, attracting increasing interest with no signs to slow down. From the inside, some things haven’t changed at all.
Getting in still feels opaque
Despite the field growing, entry paths into longevity remain unclear. If you’re young, especially early in your career, it’s still hard to know where you fit. If you don’t come from a traditional biology background, it’s easy to feel like you don’t belong here. If you’re not based in the US, opportunities are narrow. Conferences skew older and networks feel closed. It’s not always obvious how to participate meaningfully early on.
This is the gap the Xplore Program exists to address.
We run the fellowship to reduce the barrier of entry into longevity for a small cohort of 10-20 fellows each year. We do so on a full team of volunteers, because we’re also young, and we’ve been in that position not too long ago.
The program combines learning and doing in equal manner:
On the theoretical side, fellows go through courses on aging biology and the longevity industry (VC and entrepreneurship), produced and delivered by LongX team members.
On the practical side, they work directly with a longevity company or organization during the summer, contributing to real projects, and attend workshops, fireside chats, and talks with longevity biotech experts to upskill.
What we’ve learned from the first two cohorts
Consistency matters more than brilliance or knowledge.
The fellows who got the most out of the Xplore Program during our first 2 cohorts were the ones who showed up, joined calls, asked questions, and delivered work on time. Reliability was the strongest signal of future success.
Another common realization came later in the program, during the exit interviews we conduct post-fellowship. Many fellows told us they hadn’t fully grasped how deep the longevity field is, before joining us. Behind the marketing and headlines sits serious science, conversations are more nuanced and ideologies less uniform than they expected. We love some good introspection :)
What’s improved for 2026
We’ve made deliberate changes based on these lessons.
Our selection process is clearer: applications now include a two-part written process followed by interviews, designed to understand how applicants think and commit to what they say.
Expectations are clearer, too: you can’t make the most out of the Xplore Program if you can’t treat it as somewhat of a priority. It requires focused attention for roughly 8-10 hours per week during the first month, and more during the placement with a longevity biotech organisation. We expect respect for the companies we partner with and follow-through.
Who the Xplore Program is for
The Xplore Program is for people who want to test whether longevity biotech is worth committing to.
You don’t need to already have knowledge in, or work in, aging biology. You don’t need to know whether you’ll stay in this field long term. You can come from a science, business, operations, or marketing angle, or something else entirely.
What matters is genuine interest and the ability to commit for the duration of the program. We care about openness and introspection. Knowing yourself, your constraints, and your motivations makes the experience better for everyone involved (mentors, industry partners, peers, LongX team, and yourself).
What we want more of this year
Our fellows so far have represented a wide range of backgrounds and geographies, including people with roots in Korea, Pakistan, the Ivory Coast, the UK and the Middle East. Many, however, are currently based in the US.
For 2026, we’re especially excited to support more people who are living in, and were raised in, Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, or Australia. Longevity is a global problem, and the people building its future should reflect that.
Your chance to apply
If you’ve been circling longevity from the outside and wondering how people actually get in, this is your on-ramp. Applications for the Xplore Program 2026 are now open: apply here.