Morgan Levine is a ladder-rank Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at the Yale School of Medicine and a member of both the Yale Combined Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, and the Yale Center for Research on Aging. Her research aims to track epigenetic, transcriptomic, and proteomic changes with aging and incorporate this information to develop measures of risk stratification for major chronic diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. 

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The 3D part of the art piece is created with the new MetaHuman (Unreal Engine) technology, and depicts an un-chronologically aging person. The sound of the art piece is a quote from Professor Morgan Levine, Foresight Fellow working at Yale University researching the process of aging, and trying to find ways to slow it down. «What is 10 years in a life?» invites the spectators to question the inner concept of aging: Are we aging because of biological changes, or are we aging because we simply live and last in time? If we reverse the biological changes happening in our body does that mean that we are not aging anymore? Is our science able to create a world where aging could be a positive element in life that allows us to gather more knowledge and experience, while not having to dread biological degradation?

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Within the aging field what would be hugely monumental would be if we truly could show that we've taken someone back 10 years in aging. Not just in one epigenetic age test that says so, but to know that we really are able to give people more years of healthy life and more ability to keep doing all the things that make us want to stay alive. 

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Let's imagine this happening 30 years from now. Personally at that time I will be eligible for Social Security, and rather than our current stereotype of how my health would be at that time my vision is that I won't be that different from where I am today. 

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Maybe I can go out and run 10 km at a similar pace that I can today, I haven't developed any chronic conditions, and I haven't lost any kind of the physical function or vitality that I have today. 

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We have a very negative connotation of aging, but it's not our chronological aging that's the problem. It's all of the biological changes that go along with it. So if you can completely disentangle those, you can enjoy your life and aging and not have to dread your next birthday, because you know it won't come with the accumulation of X number of potential pathologies or loss of functioning. We would enjoy life more and have less existential dread.