This is a growing problem in many fields, IMHO. I've been wondering for awhile if it's an inherent flaw in knowledge in that if knowledge can't supplant older knowledge in a high compressed reduced form as things progress, we're just building so much information/knowledge for any given field that at some point, it may be quicker to simply rediscover the process than to search the knowledge for the prior work.
But what if there are necessary prerequisites for making significant advances in longevity, which themselves are so complex that they require more than a human lifespan to master? We could be at a dead end unless the computers start doing the work. And even then, perhaps the same impediment applies to the development of an AI that can bootstrap other AIs into getting the job done.