From mice to men, research in the next few decades may lead to
therapies that will dramatically extend our lifespans. 
Biologist Aubrey de Grey is developing therapies designed to
postpone aging. His test subjects may still be mice, but he argues
“there are no absolutely fundamental breakthroughs that we still
need” in order to make the jump to humans.
So how long can you and I expect to live?
“At this point I think it’s fair to say there’s a good chance
that people who are alive today, and are still young, children
today, there’s a good chance that they have no upper limit on their
lifespan,” asserts de Grey in a recent MemeBox interview
His roadmap to longevity starts in the mind:
“I think in the next 5 years we have a very good chance of
seeing a complete phase change in people’s attitude to what aging
is. In other words, to the distinction, or lack of it, between
aging and age-related diseases.”
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This interview was conducted by Venessa Posavec on Dec. 14,
2007
V: What do you do and how is that related to the future?
A: I’m a biologist, mainly, and I’m focused on the development
of future therapies that will be able to postpone human aging a
very great deal. By postpone, what I really mean is, repair the
accumulating molecular and cellular damage that causes aging, and
really is aging. The various things that happen, the side effects
of our normal metabolic operations, so to speak, throughout our
lives that will eventually cause things to go wrong with us.
V: And what is the Methuselah Foundation?
A: The Methuselah Foundation is the main vehicle through which I
pursue these goals. It’s a 501©(3) nonprofit registered in Virginia
and it was founded by me and a businessman called Dave Gobel who
has a very distinguished career in a variety of different high tech
industries over the years, so it’s very complimentary so to speak
since I’m on the science side. We have been able to build up the
foundation into a very prominent organization that both promotes
the general merits of seriously combating aging, and also directly
fund research in universities around the world to actually make
that happen. We obtain the money for that research from the general
public, and from wealthy individuals.
V: Where do you see the foundation heading in the future?
A: The main thing that it really has to do is to grow. At the
moment we’re not nearly big enough. There’s masses of research that
needs to be done, that isn’t being funded by anybody else, because
people think it’s too ambitious or they don’t understand the goals
or whatever, and it’s not being funded by us because we don’t have
the money yet. My my main purpose, my main focus at the moment is
to expand the foundation, to get more money in so that we can put
more money out.
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Scientists like Aubrey de Grey offer
convincing arguments that advances in medical technologies will one
day bring us to the point where we can effectively solve death. But
will we and should we choose to do so? You make the call. :)
By Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.unlearning101.com
In 1899,
just a few years before the Wright brothers
achieved their historic accomplishment, Lord
Kelvin – then one of the world’s brightest men and most
accomplished scientists – declared heavier than air machines to be
"impossible."
He was wrong. To add insult to injury, Lord Kelvin was proved
wrong by a pair of bicycle repairmen from Dayton, Ohio.
A few years ago, a relatively unknown computer scientist,
Aubrey de
Grey, declared that aging should not be viewed as something
which will necessarily ultimately result in death. Rather, he
theorized that aging is a disease and should be treated as
such.
The outcry from the scientific community was similar to Lord
Kelvin’s reaction to human flight. One group of scientists even
declared that de Grey’s idea was "so far from plausible that it
commands no respect at all within the informed scientific
community."
Well, according to this article
in Wired, the idea is now beginning to gain some acceptance within
scientific circles. (cont.)
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Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey is
blazing the path to immortality. He’s identified seven types of
aging damage that need to be resolved before we achieve “engineered
negligible senescence”, a medical goal that could grant an
indefinite lifespan. 
Advanced stem cell therapies and gene therapies will be a
necessity in achieving that end. de Grey, in a recent Future
Blogger interview, predicts that we may see some of those
necessary breakthroughs as early as this year:
“For 2008, I think we’re going to carry on seeing an avalanche
of reports of breakthroughs in stem cell therapies. I don’t know
exactly whether those breakthroughs will predominantly be on the
medical side or on the pre-medical side – in other words, in the
laboratory.”
“But, either way, we will begin to appreciate that stem cells
are coming into control, we are getting to the point where we can
manipulate cells to behave in the way we’d like them to, before
putting them into the body, so when we put them in the body they
can engage in a much more powerful regenerative process than they
would naturally do, than the body naturally undertakes.”
Though research in gene therapies have had a rocky road in the
past 15 years, de Grey is confident that all that is soon to
change:
“I think we’re coming now to the point where there are
sufficiently many good ideas out there that are being followed,
that it’s only a matter of time before a really big breakthrough is
made with regard to gene therapy that’s really safe and really
effective, and 2008 could be the year.”
(The full interview transcript can be found here)
