Putin declares war on aging with $26 billion vaccine project

Youth obsessed Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is now bankrolling the “world’s first” anti-aging vaccine.Putin last week ordered his scientists to develop the forever-young vaccine, part of a budget of more than 2 trillion rubles — equivalent to more than $26 billion — for a national health project that includes the development of an anti-aging vaccine for a country facing a population decline.Putin is 73, and well known to be obsessed with longevity.The average age of death for a man in Russia is 67, compared to 76.5 in the US.Deputy Minister of Science Denis Sekirinsky said researchers have developed a gene therapy targeting the RAGE or Receptor for Advanced Glycation Endproducts — the cellular trigger linked to biological aging, according to the Moscow Times.While this announcement has generated significant global attention, the US has also been deeply involved in similar and often more advanced anti-aging research, though it typically frames these as “longevity research” or “cellular reprogramming” rather than a single “vaccine.”Blocking the receptor could effectively put aging on pause, or at least slow down the progression, Sekirinsky told a conference of over 300 doctors and health experts in Saransk.The goal now is to create “the world’s first gene therapy drug” specifically designed to block the receptor, he added.Russian research on RAGE receptors has involved both lab experiments and animal models to study inflammation and disease, but human trials have not been done.Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said Russia plans to begin producing the anti-aging drug between 2028 and 2030, reported The Moscow Times.

A source close to the Kremlin previously told the exiled news outlet Meduza that the project stemmed from what they described as an “obsessive idea” from Mikhail Kovalchuk, a Putin crony and head of the Kurchatov Institute for nuclear research, “who dreams of eternal life and the ‘genome of the Russian perso...