A landmark conference hosted by GlycanAge aims to turn 25 years of inflammaging research into practical tools for doctors and patients.
What if aging started in your blood years before symptoms show? What if your body had been signaling risk long before anything felt “wrong,” and what if medicine could actually listen earlier? These are the kinds of questions driving a growing shift in longevity science – and this June, pioneering biotech and healthtech GlycanAge is trying to move them from theory into clinical reality.
The biological age-testing company will host a landmark conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, bringing together leading scientists and clinicians to mark 25 years of research into “inflammaging,” the idea that chronic, low-grade inflammation quietly accelerates aging and disease [1].
Co-organized with Mayo Clinic under the International Society for Applied Biological Sciences (ISABS) conference series, the event opens 19 June, with a dedicated clinical application day on 20 June focused on one goal: translating inflammation research into everyday medical practice.
Inflammation is usually easy to picture when it’s obvious – a fever, a swollen joint, a cut that turns red. However, inflammaging is different. It’s slow, persistent and often invisible. Think of it like a small heat source that never fully turns off. Over time, that low-level “heat” can wear down systems in the body, contributing to conditions like heart disease, diabetes and stroke.
At the center of GlycanAge’s work are glycans, tiny sugar molecules attached to proteins. They might sound obscure, but they function like molecular switches, influencing how the immune system behaves.
By analyzing these glycans in blood, the company claims it can detect whether the body is leaning toward a more inflammatory or protective state, long before disease becomes clinically visible.
Seeing risk before illness arrives
One of the most striking claims from GlycanAge is timing.
“We can see certain glycan patterns change up to 10 years prior to you developing diabetes, a heart attack or stroke, and many other conditions,” says GlycanAge co-founder and CEO Nikolina Lauc. “It’s something that can tell you, up to a decade in advance, you’re heading towards a problem, but you’re not yet symptomatic. You can still do something from a lifestyle perspective and avoid the condition entirely.”
If that holds up in broader clinical practice, it shifts the logic of healthcare itself – from reacting to illness, to anticipating it. But it also raises a tension: how do people respond to knowing they are at risk of something that hasn’t happened yet, especially when they feel completely fine?
That’s where the conference becomes more than a scientific gathering. It becomes a test of whether medicine (and patients) are ready for earlier, more abstract forms of risk.
From academic theory to applied medicine
The term “inflammaging” itself was coined by Professor Dr Claudio Franceschi, who will headline the conference’s scientific program. For decades, the concept largely lived in research papers and academic debate. Now, GlycanAge argues the science is mature enough to leave the lab.
“Inflammaging is a theory that our tool measures – it is now 25 years old, and it’s time to apply it in practice,” says Lauc. “Our measurement is beyond what you would require for even a clinical grade.”
Many longevity tools today sit in a gray zone between wellness and medicine. Scientifically intriguing, but not fully embedded in clinical systems. GlycanAge is positioning itself on the medical side of that divide.
Behind the conference is a company that has quietly scaled its data footprint. Founded by Professor Dr Gordan Lauc, alongside Nikolina Lauc and Filip Lauc, GlycanAge has analyzed glycan profiles from over 300,000 people and contributed to hundreds of peer-reviewed publications.
It now operates across 64 markets, working with around 2,000 clinics, alongside direct-to-consumer testing. Its lab infrastructure spans multiple regions, including operations in China and Mexico, with expansion planned into India.
The company also claims a relatively tight measurement margin (under one year) which it positions as a key differentiator in a field where biological age estimates can vary widely between platforms.
What this actually means for longevity
It’s easy to get lost in the technical language of biomarkers, glycans and inflammation pathways. But the underlying idea is simple: aging is not just time passing; it’s biology shifting, often silently, in ways that can potentially be measured early.
The real question isn’t whether inflammation plays a role in aging – most researchers already agree it does. The question is whether we can act on it early enough to change outcomes in a meaningful way.
This conference becomes an inflection point, not because it introduces inflammaging, but because it asks something more difficult: can we make it clinically useful?
If the answer is yes, longevity stops being an abstract concept about extending lifespan. It becomes something more immediate – a system for noticing risk earlier, adjusting behavior sooner and potentially reshaping how long “healthy years” actually last.
Inflammaging in Clinical Practice is a one-day intensive designed for clinicians and longevity experts. The event focuses on providing practical frameworks for assessing immune aging and integrating preventive care into standard practice.
- Date: 20 June 2026
- Location: Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, Croatia
- Registration: Join the event here