Fountains of Youth
Hacking the Maximum Lifespan
In conversation with Michael Anissimov and Aubrey de Gray
The quest for rejuvenation and even physical immortality has long been a driving force for dreamers, scientists and alchemists. Long before biotechnology or even scientific method, various cultures tried out a wide variety of strange brews in an attempt to maintain their youth and live for a very long time. Siberian shamen even drank their own urine, an organic approach that will no doubt someday displace the raw foods craze among foodies. Ponce de Leon went in search of the fountain of youth, but only succeeded in finding Florida, the place where old folks now go to accidentally vote for Patrick Buchanan and live out their senescence in the sun.
In the late 1970s and early ?80s, various edge runners popularized the idea of radical life extension; expanding healthy life both to ? and beyond its presumed biological limits. Advocates Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw appeared frequently on the popular Merv Griffin prime-time TV show and in 1982 authored Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach ? Adding Years to Your Life and Life to Your Years, which became a best-seller. During this same period, the famous alternative philosopher Dr. Timothy Leary spread ideas about life extension among rebels and counterculturalists.
While I was among those who took an active interest in this pursuit, somewhere in the mad rush of technological change and hype that characterized the digital '90s I failed to register major developments in the life extension/rejuvenation field. Sure, I read reports like the 1994 New York Times piece where Mike West of Geron Corporation waxed optimistic about their quest for the "immortalizing enzyme"; as well as other reports about reputable scientists, investors and corporations that were already working at beating the onset of senescence as a natural fact of life. But during this period where everything seemed not only possible but inevitable, I didn't linger long enough over the details of this rather extraordinary development of industries explicitly devoted to this radical assault on human limits to really let it sink in.
If you're like me, and wish to catch up on how the biotechnological sciences are chasing down the causes and the cures for aging and death, you will definitely want to check out Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension by Stephen Hall. A New York Times science reporter, Hall brings just the right mix of sympathy and skepticism to the field, bringing readers up to speed on the basic science, the personalities, and the politics behind this pursuit.
The web, of course, is another great place to track all sorts of developments (not just biotech) in radical life extension, and on many of the sites dedicated to the topic you can also pick up an eyeful of philosophical debate and discussion. ImmInst.org, a site run by the Immortality Institute for Infinite Lifespans, stands out as one of the more eloquent sites extolling the quest for immortality.
Recently, I had a brief email exchange with Michael Anissimov. Anissimov has been a director of the Immortality Institute for Infinite Lifespans since its inception in 2002. I also had an email exchange with Aubrey de Gray, a Cambridge gerontologist who recently went out on the limb in expressing his optimism about the possibility of expanding maximum lifespan in the near future. I've mixed the interview together in an attempt to illuminate developments in the field.
NEO FILES: The major work on extending maximum life span seems to be focused on biotechnology, overcoming the so-called Hayflick limit. (Len Hayflick showed that normal cells replicate only a finite number of times. Then they senesce and die. This can cause certain problems in human beings related to aging.) Way back in the early 90s, various figures like Mike West, then with the Geron Corporation, and Cynthia Kenyon, currently with Elixir Pharmaceuticals, were talking about the "immortalizing enzyme" and "the fountain of youth gene", and reputable (or semi-reputable) companies were hoping to market products. Can you describe some of the progress that's been made towards getting control over aging at the cellular and genetic levels?
MICHAEL ANNISIMOV: First of all, phrases like "immortality enzyme" and "fountain of youth gene" are two-edged swords ? on one side, they suggest to people that control of aging through technology really is possible. On the other side, they can overexcite the naive and make it seem like we're further along than we really are. We're certainly a lot closer than we were in the early nineties, but still have a decade or longer to go.
Complete Article: http://www.life-enha...efault.asp?id=7
