The Technology Review outlines some of the recent history of funded anti-aging research, with the main focus on calorie restriction mimetics, metabolism, genetics, Elixir and Sirtris: "The goal is clear: the discovery of drugs that will delay the onset of many of our most devastating diseases, the kind of illnesses that frequently turn the golden years into years of chronic ill health. ... Everybody associates caloric restriction with longevity and life span, but the effects on diseases are much more immediate and important. If only we understood how [calorie restriction] works, such knowledge would guide us in drug development. We would have a drug that would favorably impact many of the common diseases." This metabolic manipulation is very different from approaches like SENS, which aim to repair age-related cellular damage.
Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16482,259,p1.html