CU researcher tackles age-old challenge
Professor expands worms' lifetimes from 3 weeks to 6 months
http://www.boulderne...2260218,00.html
By Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer
September 15, 2003
- Tom Johnsonhttp://ibgwww.colora...me_people1.html
University of Colorado professor Tom Johnson has been spending a lot of time lately juggling that startling assertion with a pair of fundamental questions.
You can live to be 350.
Do you want to?
And what will society look like if most people say "yes"?
Johnson is one of a growing number of researchers across the country studying the genes that make humans age and trying to develop ways to turn them off.
And, in tiny worms called nemotodes, he has had some success, extending their three-week life spans to as long as six months.
Those results — which have been replicated in mice, which are very similar genetically to humans — lead Johnson to his startling conclusion: that within the next few decades, scientists will be able to develop either drugs or some other kind of medical procedure that stretches the human lifespan into centuries.
That strikes the 55-year-old Johnson, who has lately started to feel the creak of age in his joints when he plays tennis, as a good idea.
But he says society could look radically different in myriad ways should other people share his outlook.
The retirement age, for example, will need to be extended for a few decades.
While Johnson thinks working is essential to enjoying a meaningful existence, it doesn't mean someone should settle into the same job for two centuries.
For one thing, young people might resent old people getting in the way.
"You won't have lifetime tenure any longer," he said. "Maybe you'll have 30-year tenure, and then a 20-year retirement period. You can enjoy yourself, and then retrain yourself to go do something different."
Johnson disagrees with predictions made by Aubrey de Grey, a Cambridge professor who thinks people with the potential to live for centuries will become exceptionally cautious — after all, de Grey reasons, you wouldn't want to die in an accident and give up a few centuries of life.
Au countraire, Johnson said.
"Look at who dies in accidents now," he said. "It's people in their twenties, who already have the most to lose."
That's because people don't become cautious until they feel the first tinges of mortality in their joints, he reasons.
"And if you feel fairly youthful at the age of 100, you're more likely to go bungee jumping and sky-diving," he said.
Johnson thinks a society comprised of the exceptionally long-lived has the potential to be more ethical and more conscientious.
Environmental stewardship, for example, will mean more to people who know they'll see firsthand the damage they're causing now, even if it takes 200 years to manifest itself.
Johnson said it's a conclusion he has reached just by studying the issue.
"It's made me feel like I have the personal obligation to become more concerned and more ethical," he said.
But Johnson's plans still strike some people as far-fetched. As they shopped on the Pearl Street Mall on Friday afternoon, Deborah and Cameron Graham — ages 42 and 60, respectively — didn't embrace a Methusulian future with open arms.
Cameron Graham wasn't thrilled with the prospect of centuries of work.
"Based on working 34 years and recently retiring, I really wouldn't want to work 150 years," he said.
Contact Ryan Morgan at morganr@dailycamera.com or (303) 473-1333.
