Ask Aubrey de Grey About Longevity Research 639
There may be such a thing as a conventional scientist -- but Aubrey de Grey is not one. Instead, biogerontologist de Grey has spent much of the last 20 years investigating the science of aging by considering the aging process as a multifaceted disease whose manifestations can be mitigated, rather than an inevitability to merely accept. That might not be unusual in itself, but de Grey believes that by addressing the causes and symptoms of aging, human life can be extended to at least 1000 years — a stance has earned him accolades and contempt in various degrees. (He might not especially mind being called names like "rogue" and "maverick," though.) De Grey is also chairman and chief science officer of The Methuselah Foundation, whose M-Prize for extending the lifespan of mice has been mentioned on Slashdot before. Ask de Grey about his research below; he'll answer the top-rated questions, and we'll publish them in this space. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply — so ask all the questions you'd like, but please confine yourself to one per post.
Telomerase and aging (Score:5, Interesting)
From the studies I've looked at, and the differing oppinions of the popular media, there seems to be a lot of misconceptions on the effects (or lack thereof) of telomerase on aging. Could you give a brief discussion of that (and possibly other factors/nonfactors and relative importance)?
Practical repurcussions (Score:5, Interesting)
If we stop aging... (Score:5, Interesting)
Has any research been done on how extreme longevity affects a person psychologically?
What Have we Learned so far? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people understand that parts of biological life break-down over time for various reasons, mostly environmental. What have we learned so far about humans, for example, and why cell death occurs?(Setting aside environmental causes like cancer, virii, toxins, etc.) If you had 60 secs to get a college student excited about wanting to study and research life extension, what would you say besides the obvious 'live-forever' meme?
After Death? (Score:3, Interesting)
Social/Societal Implactions of extreme longevity (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you or your organization research the societal implications of extreme long life? How will our cultures, society, and laws, and families/family structures have to change to accommodate long life? Are we ready for it?
1000 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that the most promising research to-date on life-extension (resveratrol and caloric restriction) can produce about a 40% increase in maximum lifespan at best, how do you estimate that we can achieve a lifespan of 1,000 years (about a 10-fold increase in current maximum lifespans)?
What about the insurmountable problems? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given such limitations, do you still consider near-immortality as a realistic possibility, or will we merely see a continuation of the current trend of higher functionality up the extreme natural limit to our lifespans (110 to 120 years), at which point people simply die of nothing?
Human Fertility (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, would a child not encounter puberty until age 130?
Surely you've been asked the overpopulation question before, what is your response?
5 things (Score:0, Interesting)
what are some of the most promising.... (Score:2, Interesting)
what are some of the most promising technologys that could have the most impact? and how soon?
-Nex6
How to Deal With the Memories? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say we can live for 400, 600, 1000 years. How will we cope with all those centuries of memories? Even people nearing a century often (usually?) can't cope with that much info about themselves. Their personalities are often severly constrained, or at least exclude quite a bit of who they were 3/4 of a century ago. Is perhaps some of that limitation not merely "hardware", which your research targets, but also our "software", the way we integrate experiences into our personality and worldview?
Across 1000 years, a lot of those experiences are going to conflict, made as they are out of the human condition. How do we keep our minds together as well as your medicine proposes to maintain our bodies?
Myself, I drink to forget. Maintaining a window of clarity here towards the end, at the expense of a murky past I can't recall, is my own contribution to your grand project. Here's mud in yer eye!
Think of the mice! (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with extending aging, as you can see with these rodents, is eventually they all get cancer. This is because their life in the hands of a caring human being can be MUCH longer, relatively, than if they were out scurrying in a forest somewhere. Maybe you can extend general human life, but you are going to start seeing a lot more cancer and a lot more Alzheimer's.
Preventable diseases TODAY (Score:2, Interesting)
Given that so many well understood treatable and cureable diseases TODAY are not treated or cured, isn't it putting the cart before the horse to concentrate one life extension?
Given our overpopulation, limited natural resources, and great resistance to any sort of population control, throttling, etc, isn't age extension an irresponsible idea? Couldn't the effort be on making sure the earth is still habitable for at least another 1000 years?
Dude, what's with the beard?
A personal question, perhaps, but relevant: (Score:5, Interesting)
What system of philosophy do you subscribe to that drives you to discover such things? Is it just the desire to see man taken to his highest potential, or is it something deeper?
Re:If we stop aging... (Score:4, Interesting)
Stagnant Aging vs. Constant Aging (Score:5, Interesting)
If the average human lifespan were extended to 1000, would the average human age at a normal speed (i.e., like now), then hit a certain specific age and remain at that age until the end (everlasting youth), or would the aging be constant?
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you or anybody in your field considered that humans living that long would grossly exacerbate the current crisis concerning population and resources?
Have you considered the fact that humans who have longer lifespans tend to have lower birthrates? I'm not suggesting causation, of course, but I am pointing out the fact that birthrates decrease as poverty and disease are ameliorated.
Is it just a funding issue? (Score:1, Interesting)
If the 3 trillion dollars spent on the Iraq war was spent on life extension instead, how much would this extend the average human life?
I always figured the best way to get everyone to live longer to have a life race like the space race of the cold war years?
What can we do NOW? (Score:5, Interesting)
If I gave you a lab rat today, how long could you extend his life?
What about me - is there anything I can do (other than a healthy lifestyle), or could have done, today, to start extending my life?
How long before the answers to either of these questions change significantly? 5 years? 10? 20?
Regenerated Brain Cells and the Self (Score:2, Interesting)
Assuming that the "self" (ie. the soul/consciousness/memory/etc.) resides biologically and physically in the brain and considering that, from what I understand, longevity research has a great deal to do with regeneration of cells more than extending lifetimes of individual cells, what implications are there if an individual has wholly "regenerated" the cells in their brain?
For example, somebody may have a brain that is composed of entirely new brain cells than they had X number of years ago. Does this have implications of their memory of themselves, their sense of self, etc.?
Re:1000 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the statistical rate of death from accidents involving major trauma yields about one event every 1000 years.
He's assuming we can solve the aging & disease problems, but not being splattered by a semi.
Re:If we stop aging... (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is more difficult an issue to tackle? (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering your line of study, would you say the more difficult issues to deal with regarding life extension are technical ones (how do we do it?) or moral ones (why do we do it?)
Repair or replace? (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you consider it a success if we replace broken body parts with prosthetics, artificial organs, or lab-grown replacements? Or are you focusing on keeping our original stock components?
I'll Bite... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. elastin.. It's not alive, it doesnt regenerate. and even if replaced in a full sized organism, it would already be "loose" because it tightens as we grow, and eventually breaks down.. How do you replace this substance throughout the body? (I'm hoping this covers a bunch of the other materials of the same type)
2. degradation of cell function.. as mutations occur in cells, the functional protiens become non-functional.. while these arent cancerous, they are problematic as they're just hobos in the body. to stop this would require freakloads of genetic therapy, rather than the smaller amount needed to repair cancer.
3. Overcoming telomerase,, so does it get nuked by your gene therapy, or are the stem cells engineered to full length only..
4. How do you keep the protein digesting enzymes needed for removing garbage from inside cells from eating barr bodies and other useful proteins that would normally inhabit and possibly pollute a cell.
5. How do you prevent damage to someone who has 2 copies of a gene that are both useful (the two having a broader functional range than any known single gene) from getting your genericized version at both? wiping out the advantage.
6. How do you keep the memories from fading to nothing?
Thanks,
Storm
Mentality ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you feel humans have the capability to cope mentally with a 1000 years of life ?
The power to extend life, and to take it away... (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you a proponent of assisted suicide?
Should humans someday find that living to 1,000 as "normal" (through genetic advances, let's say), there will certainly be some that would prefer to live to 750, 500 or 100. Do you find it ethical to provide them an "early ticket"?
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, he has. Extensively. Please browse any of his websites. There are many scientific discussions addressing this very topic.
My personal counter to your rather far-reaching question is "what's your cutoff?" We extend life each and every day with new medical advances. Indeed, our lifespans have already been doubled in the last couple of hundred years. Is 105 acceptable to you? Too old? Should I not get my yearly flu vaccine because that may extend my life?
Civilization adapts. I want the choice. Do some research on the debate of longevity. After you do, please come back and tell me how old I should be allowed to live to and then we can have a different discussion.
Re:Economics of Anti-Aging (Score:5, Interesting)
Per his Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] he was in fact awarded a PhD from Cambridge. He did apparently get it without studying biology at Cambridge, which is pretty weird. Of course, that's also Wikipedia, so take it with an appropriately sized grain of salt.
It does look as if his biology credentials are weak (if one can even glean that from a Wikipedia entry), but it also looks as if he sincerely believes in the work.
On the other hand, I think someone taking a public stand and saying "treat this is a solvable problem" is doing a great service. It's sheer idiocy and superstition that we treat aging as if it's untreatable.
Re:Straigh to the Point (Score:3, Interesting)
With the right technique an old person might be the ideal candidate. If you can somehow rejuvenate the cells it would be most measurable on an old person. You also wouldn't have to wait as long to show the advantages...
How do you tell if it's not possible? (Score:5, Interesting)
Others have listed potential problems, I'm interested in the follow-up question to those: what do you look for to say "this won't work"?
Simply stating "I believe it can" is the realm of religion. What evidence would it take to convince you that it isn't possible after all?
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:2, Interesting)
What about carbon 14 radioactivity? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some questions (Score:1, Interesting)
2) Another example: if I eat at Subway's, and some poor 80 year old guy eats at Subway's, how come his body takes the ageless atoms and arranges them as "80 year old" cells? When he poops them out the next day, and they can be used to grow new lettuce, I can feed a kid and he will then make "kid aged" cells with the *same* atoms, correct?
3) If atoms don't have an age, how come we do? Is the pattern degrading? If so, how can we make babies? Where does the "new" pattern come from?
4) How important is Alagebrium in the near future?
5) Any news on Brooke Greenberg? How important is she?
You seem like a good man to ask... (Score:3, Interesting)
What first? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not much over 40, and I can already tell my memory isn't as good as I was younger. My father, another 30 years older than me, has significant problems with short term memory, despite otherwise decent health. Do you agree that focusing primarily on minimizing the debilitating effects of aging is the best approach, rather than focusing simply on extending life itself regardless of the quality of life it would give?
Re:Think of the mice! (Score:4, Interesting)
I would rather die of cancer at 200 than of anything else at 70.
Aging and Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you considered that aging, as a mechanism of limiting average life span, may not be a "disorder" but rather a biological adaptation, important for evolution? At the level of populations, where a lot of evolution occurs, it may be advantageous to limit the number of previous generations with which new ones have to compete. Useful new mutations will also be more likely to gain penetrance, I would think. And beyond that, life span is one of those system parameters - like mutation rate, recombination frequency, generation length, etc. - that determine the performance of evolutionary systems themselves as optimizers.
Which is not to say we are bound to accept it, of course. Many species live longer than humans, and many more not nearly as long. There is certainly more to it than the analogy of machinery "wearing out". Were mankind able to unravel this process and stop or reverse it, that would be quite an adaptation in itself, wouldn't it?
Humans already optimized for long life? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several promising animal models (caloric restriction, resveritol) for increasing longevity by 20-40%. Given that human beings already seem to live unusually long for mammals of our size, it is possible evolution (driven social/cultural advantages granted by long-lived friends and relatives) has already acted to take advantage of the biochemical processes involved.
What research has been done on human biochemistry to assess if that might be the case?
Mostly, not worth considering (Score:2, Interesting)
Aubrey de Grey has had only two ideas worth considering IMHO. First he said that longevity should not be a research goal; rather, we should learn to control the rate of aging. And if we can control the rate, perhaps we can learn to reverse aging. The second idea worth considering is specific drugs to break protein cross-linkages. But ideas like finding an agent that will remove all the plaque from your arteries like flooding an iron pipe with caustic soda will leave you with arteries that could blow out like an old rubber tube; so some of his ideas leave a lot to be desired.
Over all, I must admit, the idea of approaching aging as an engineering problem is a refreshing if not always sane point of view.
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A personal question, perhaps, but relevant: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it just the desire to see man taken to his highest potential, or is it something deeper?
The "highest potential" desire is in itself a pretty deep motivation. I guess I get a sense that the question is along the lines of "Did you just do it to get in touch with God, Reality, and Nature; or was there a deeper motivation like winning a $100 bet or getting laid more often?"
Re:Straigh to the Point (Score:1, Interesting)
Any long term project needs milestones and continuous evaluation to stay on track. What are the specific goals that you plan to accomplish in the next ten years and how will you measure success. Also, if your current plan does not work, what is the process for modifying and improving your plan?
Physical fitness and the first bridge (Score:4, Interesting)
To get to what Ray Kurzweil calls the "First Bridge" -- to live long enough to take advantage of the first generation of longevity-enhancing therapies, in 15 to 20 years from now -- many people must change their lifestyles to stay as healthy as possible, so they're in good shape when the time comes.
The role of physical fitness seems to be given mere lip service in the popular longevity literature. By "physical fitness", I don't mean just the lack of obesity, but rather the ability to run at least a marathon, for example. Evolution has selected bodies for us that are capable of very demanding physical tasks, yet most people sit around with resting heart rates at least double what they could be if they were fit.
Do you know of any serious research efforts into the effects of peak physical fitness on optimal health and longevity?
Grid Computing? (Score:1, Interesting)
Have you any need or have thought of using Grid computing services like BOINC to help speed up your research?
What do you want to do TODAY... (Score:3, Interesting)
So what specific projects would you like to be funding, that aren't being adequately funded today?
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:3, Interesting)
It's interesting to consider that even Joe Average could get crazy wealthy just due to the power of compound interest. If Joe's parents put $1000 in a bank account for him at birth, earning 5% compounded annually, then at age 1000 that would have grown to a staggering $1.5 * 10^24 . Of course with this much money swooshing around there'd be killer inflation to boot. It's hard to imagine what the financial world would look like!
I wonder if someone with a few hundres years of life experience would even have any interest in things like grad school level studies - you might develop a "seen it done it" total boredom with the world and/or such a high level degree of abstraction born of so much life experience that the trifles of the specifics of any field would not interest you. Maybe the young "fresh brains" would turn out to be massively in demand as the only ones with enough LACK of life experience to still have an interest in actually acomplishing anything.
The societal changes brought about by a 1000 year lifetime would no doubt be extrememly pround and extrememly difficult to predict.
Re:After Death? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not really that hard to imagine, given some knowledge of the assumptions used. For example, if we assume that people follow patterns typical to early-21st century America (study until 22, then work until 65, then retire until death), then as the period of retirement lengthens, we will see more and more capital and less and less labor. The result is economically obvious: returns to labor (i.e. wages) will increase and returns to capital (i.e. stock market gains, dividends, etc.) will decrease. What happens to inflation depends (as always) on the money supply, which is a separate issue.
You can be certain that it won't be possible to drop $1,000 in "the bank", watch it grow at (say) 1% after inflation for 1,000 years, and end up with $20 million in then-current dollars. Interest rates on demand deposits usually don't exceed inflation; interest rates on CDs do, but have a fixed lifetime. Would you buy a 1,000-year CD? What are the odds the bank will even be around after 1,000 years? Or that you will be (given accidents and other unforeseeable events)?
Regardless, what seems much more likely is that if people really can live 1,000 years, people will not follow our current pattern of study-work-retire-die. Rather, it will become study-work-retire-study-work-retire-etc. You might become sick of your job after 75 years, so quit for a while, learn a new trade, and start that. You've got plenty of time, after all.
A question I'd also like to see raised is what are the social implications? What would happen to monogamy, for example? Heinlein discusses this a bit in Methuselah's Children and at more length in Time Enough For Love.
Re:After Death? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've always loved religions dual punch on mortality and afterlife. On one hand they claim that this life is crap, and that there is something really awesome and special on the other side. But then they claim that you must live through this crap, your not allowed to use your get out of jail free card.
I always wondered how long religions with a strong concept of an afterlife would survive without the prohibitions against suicide.
Another fun bit is the emerging view among the fundamentalist crowd, that this life is crap, the next one is awesome, so who cares what we do to this one. Or conversely, the creepy view that they should try to BRING ABOUT the end of this world (second coming). Couldn't this be seen as just another form of suicide, where the radical fundamentalist crowd is trying to kill the rest of us, and thus forcing god's hand, which could be as big a no-no as individual suicide?
I'm more disturbed by the costs here in the mortal realm, screw your soul, and land of milk and honey, the rest of us have to (or want to) live here.
Back on topic; I often wonder if ideas such as this (and the "singularity", "transhumanism", etc...) are nothing but religions for atheists. Rationalism doesn't fill the hole which leads to the development of religions, and ideas of afterlives. Death is still scary, and still is the great unknowable wall outside of our experience. We still must have some deep yearning to make sense of that monolithic event, and no amount of rationalism, and skepticism can fix that.
It all boils down to the fact that we are incapable of actually understanding a world without us as the center of experience, and meaning. The universe is always seen (subjectively) as in the context of ourselves, thus the universe is meaningless without us. We must rectify this, psychologically.
Advantage of The Methuselah Foundation (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious if you try to leave old-age diseases and disorders for traditional medical research and take on the problems leftover? What areas of aging has traditional medical research been ignoring?
Re:Mr. De Grey, what vitamins do you recommend? (Score:3, Interesting)
"What vitamins would you recommend to slow the process of aging?"
I can answer that, none.
In fact pretty much all studies show that a healthy person gains nothing from taking vitamins. IN fact, they can be at risk depending on their supplement regime.
Vitamin A poisoning is rather nasty.
It seems the only thing vitamins treat is a fat wallet.
What should I do? (Score:2, Interesting)
Canada will never become a state... (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the Republicans will never allow it.
They know that even _Alberta_ would send 2 democrats to the senate.
A taste of your own meds? (Score:2, Interesting)
Multidisciplinary contribution (Score:2, Interesting)
Protagonistic pleiotropy (Score:2, Interesting)
You've proposed that the accumulation of non-cancerous mutations to genes don't contribute to aging in a normal lifespan, because there are tens of trillions of cells in the human body, and a significant fraction of them would have to be damaged to cause trouble. But it only takes a few mutations in a single cell to kill someone through cancer. So we don't have to worry about non-cancerous mutations killing us until a very long time after the average age at which we get cancer (70s or 80s in humans).
As no current technology is capable of repairing DNA damage, this theory is a lynchpin of SENS (and any probably any rejuvenation strategy).
Why is it do you think that this theory is not generally accepted by the scientific community, and what sort of experimental evidence would be needed to help change their minds?
Re:Practical repurcussions (Score:3, Interesting)
....A big change, yes, but it could be good or bad.....
depending on whether all people were either good or bad. Elimination of death would be great if all people were good, never selfish, never doing anything to hurt another or seeking advantage over another human being. The sad fact is that all people are not good, but that there are those among us who will stop at nothing to get their own way and take power over others at all costs. If people like that somehow manage to grab power and never die, they would create hell on earth for the rest of us. Because all people are not good, it is a blessing that death prevents evil from getting the upper hand on all of humanity.