Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
[Q]The Man Who Would Murder Death
A rogue researcher challenges scientists to reverse human aging
By THOMAS BARTLETT
Cambridge, England
If you wish to be a prophet, first you must dress the part. No more silk ties or tasseled loafers. Instead, throw on a wrinkled T-shirt, frayed jeans, and dirty sneakers. You should appear somewhat unkempt, as if combs and showers were only for the unenlightened. When you encounter critics, as all prophets do, dismiss them as idiots. Make sure to pepper your conversation with grandiose predictions and remind others of your genius often, lest they forget. Oh, and if possible, grow a very long beard.
By these measures, Aubrey de Grey is indeed a prophet. The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent — or even reverse — allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die.
Mainstream gerontologists do not agree and hate to even raise the topic in public. They shy away from talk about life extension or "curing" aging and prefer to focus on keeping older people healthy for as long as possible, a goal referred to in the discipline as "compression of morbidity" or "healthspan." Many of them write off Mr. de Grey as more beard than brain.
So ... is he crazy? Not in the sense that he is divorced from reality or just making things up as he goes along. Mr. de Grey is a serious, thoughtful, sincere, prolific, even brilliant researcher and thinker who seems to have devoted every last ounce of his intellect to conquering the single biggest medical menace facing mankind. Along the way, he has acquired plenty of supporters and detractors — and gained the respect of some of the top scientists in the world.
He even has a plan. It is, to say the least, ambitious, and it depends on a number of techniques and treatments that have yet to be developed (curing cancer, for instance, is one of the steps). His approach, which he has dubbed Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, draws from different branches of science and medicine and is enough to spin the heads of specialists and nonspecialists alike. It has also caused a stir, something Mr. de Grey certainly knows how to do. "One hundred and fifty thousand people die every day, and two-thirds of those die of aging in one way or the other," he says, while nursing a pint of fine English ale. "If I speed up the cure for aging by one day, then I've saved 100,000 people." He pauses thoughtfully for a moment. "Actually, I probably do that every week."
[...]
HOW TO CURE AGING
Aubrey de Grey has a seven-step plan he says will "cure" aging and allow people to live for a very long time. Here it is:
The problem: Cell loss or atrophy
Mr. de Grey's solution: Develop stem cells to replace lost cells. Or use chemicals that stimulate the division of cells to produce new ones.
The problem: Cancer
Mr. de Grey's solution: Aggressive gene therapy will make it impossible for cancer cells to reproduce. Stem-cell therapy will prevent side effects.
The problem: Mitochondrial mutations
Mr. de Grey's solution: Mitochondria are the cell's power plants, and they house separate genes that are prone to harmful mutations that cause diseases. To prevent those problems, copy the critical mitochondrial genes and insert the copies in the cell's nucleus, where they will be better protected.
The problem: Unwanted cells (such as fat cells)
Mr. de Grey's solution: Possibly stimulate the immune system to kill unwanted cells.
The problem: Stiffening of proteins outside the cell
Mr. de Grey's solution: Proteins outside cells help support tissues, making arteries elastic and ligaments strong. But chemical reactions throughout life link those proteins and make them less mobile. Specific chemicals could break those links and allow the proteins to move more easily. One chemical is already in clinical trials, says Mr. de Grey.
The problem: "Junk" outside the cell
Mr. de Grey's solution: Plaques accumulate outside the cell and may lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's. Small molecules called beta-breakers may break these plaques down.
The problem: "Junk" inside the cell
Mr. de Grey's solution: As cells age, molecules can change in ways that make them stop working. Those structures can accumulate in cells and and eventually overwhelm them. Extra enzymes from bacteria could be given to cells to degrade the unwanted material.
More details can be found on his Web site: (http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/AdGbio.htm)
http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i10/10a01401.htm
[/Q]
yes, yes, yes ... the man may well be a quack.
but, think about it: how long would you want to live?
A rogue researcher challenges scientists to reverse human aging
By THOMAS BARTLETT
Cambridge, England
If you wish to be a prophet, first you must dress the part. No more silk ties or tasseled loafers. Instead, throw on a wrinkled T-shirt, frayed jeans, and dirty sneakers. You should appear somewhat unkempt, as if combs and showers were only for the unenlightened. When you encounter critics, as all prophets do, dismiss them as idiots. Make sure to pepper your conversation with grandiose predictions and remind others of your genius often, lest they forget. Oh, and if possible, grow a very long beard.
By these measures, Aubrey de Grey is indeed a prophet. The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent — or even reverse — allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die.
Mainstream gerontologists do not agree and hate to even raise the topic in public. They shy away from talk about life extension or "curing" aging and prefer to focus on keeping older people healthy for as long as possible, a goal referred to in the discipline as "compression of morbidity" or "healthspan." Many of them write off Mr. de Grey as more beard than brain.
So ... is he crazy? Not in the sense that he is divorced from reality or just making things up as he goes along. Mr. de Grey is a serious, thoughtful, sincere, prolific, even brilliant researcher and thinker who seems to have devoted every last ounce of his intellect to conquering the single biggest medical menace facing mankind. Along the way, he has acquired plenty of supporters and detractors — and gained the respect of some of the top scientists in the world.
He even has a plan. It is, to say the least, ambitious, and it depends on a number of techniques and treatments that have yet to be developed (curing cancer, for instance, is one of the steps). His approach, which he has dubbed Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, draws from different branches of science and medicine and is enough to spin the heads of specialists and nonspecialists alike. It has also caused a stir, something Mr. de Grey certainly knows how to do. "One hundred and fifty thousand people die every day, and two-thirds of those die of aging in one way or the other," he says, while nursing a pint of fine English ale. "If I speed up the cure for aging by one day, then I've saved 100,000 people." He pauses thoughtfully for a moment. "Actually, I probably do that every week."
[...]
HOW TO CURE AGING
Aubrey de Grey has a seven-step plan he says will "cure" aging and allow people to live for a very long time. Here it is:
The problem: Cell loss or atrophy
Mr. de Grey's solution: Develop stem cells to replace lost cells. Or use chemicals that stimulate the division of cells to produce new ones.
The problem: Cancer
Mr. de Grey's solution: Aggressive gene therapy will make it impossible for cancer cells to reproduce. Stem-cell therapy will prevent side effects.
The problem: Mitochondrial mutations
Mr. de Grey's solution: Mitochondria are the cell's power plants, and they house separate genes that are prone to harmful mutations that cause diseases. To prevent those problems, copy the critical mitochondrial genes and insert the copies in the cell's nucleus, where they will be better protected.
The problem: Unwanted cells (such as fat cells)
Mr. de Grey's solution: Possibly stimulate the immune system to kill unwanted cells.
The problem: Stiffening of proteins outside the cell
Mr. de Grey's solution: Proteins outside cells help support tissues, making arteries elastic and ligaments strong. But chemical reactions throughout life link those proteins and make them less mobile. Specific chemicals could break those links and allow the proteins to move more easily. One chemical is already in clinical trials, says Mr. de Grey.
The problem: "Junk" outside the cell
Mr. de Grey's solution: Plaques accumulate outside the cell and may lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's. Small molecules called beta-breakers may break these plaques down.
The problem: "Junk" inside the cell
Mr. de Grey's solution: As cells age, molecules can change in ways that make them stop working. Those structures can accumulate in cells and and eventually overwhelm them. Extra enzymes from bacteria could be given to cells to degrade the unwanted material.
More details can be found on his Web site: (http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/AdGbio.htm)
http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i10/10a01401.htm
[/Q]
yes, yes, yes ... the man may well be a quack.
but, think about it: how long would you want to live?
Last edited:
Looks like we posted pretty much the same question simultaneously, except I worded it far more pessimistically.
I'd love to hear what they'd come up with over the next 50 years as I think they are better now in their mid 40's to early 50's than they were in their 20's and 30's (although they were more popluar in their 20's and 30's). I'd love to look forward to another 50 years of albums and live shows (someone would have to fix SK's tinnitus) with them (and me) all being vibrant and healthy. 
), it's just that I don't think we'd be as far along culturally as we are if we still had most of the people from 1000 years ago still alive and kicking. I think you do need a cycle of birth and death. Just to keep things fresh.
And I can already hear A Wanderer scoffing that the concept of incipient rights of wholly nonexistent beings to exist is utter nonsense. Rationally speaking, true. But I think somewhere around here is where the potential moral dimensions of this issue come into play. What, if any, obligations do we have to submit to the the biological processes that got us as a species to where we are? Evolution is not a rationally directed process, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that wisdom of an experiential sort is encoded in our genes (and the degenerative processes they themselves are vulnerable to).
