LONGECITY

Nov 5, 2005 - ImmInst Atlanta Life Extension Conf.
http://www.imminst.org/conference

Individual Speaker Abstract & Discussion Forum:


Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey, Ph.D.
Research Associate; University of Cambridge - SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) a detailed plan for curing human aging. ImmInst Book Contribution - ImmInst Chat

Aubrey's power point presentation:

http://www.imminst.o...ence/Aubrey.ppt

Aubrey stated in his presentation (according to the powerpoint file attached):

$100m/year of purely philanthropic funding would have a 90% chance of making enough progress in already long-lived mice (therapy starting at 2/3 of life expectancy giving three-fold greater remaining lifespan), within 10 years

Now that is an enormous amount of money to invest in making mice live longer, in order:

to change public attitudes and start the real War On Aging

One would hope that $1 billion would provide more than merely PR.
(If it were only about PR then why not just hire the best PR company?)

Considering that we would all agree that the solution to the aging problem is likely to be found in the realm of molecular biology and related disciplines I'm wondering how $100 million would be spent. It would be helpful if Aubrey could provide a plan of how such an amount would be allocated in the form of plan including his vision for the research foci.

One great thing about the Mprize is that its a PR effort based on scientific results. We will hopefully be getting somewhere with the science while educating the public about the results. If we where to use all the money on PR only, I doubt it would have the necessary long term effect on public opinion as robust mouse rejuvenation would have.

I would dare to say the same thing about using the money only on research. General public opposition to the aging process would grand billions of research dollars to the research and development of robust human rejuvenation therapies. Amounts and effort it would be virtually impossible to raise without a high probability of medium term return on investment.

It could then be argued that when scientific results are in place, it should be easy to start a PR campaign to raise further resources to research and development. I would argue that simultaneous efforts would be more effective and I see no reason to delay the PR effort until results are clearer. When would the results be clear enough to justify a PR effort? I think its pretty clear we can do something about the aging process, but others are of a different opinion. Public opinion is also formed by expert opinion, so a mindless PR effort would probably not convince the experts.

In any case, we do not have the 100m/year yet, and I doubt anyone is of the opinion that we should wait until we have them.

One would hope that $1 billion would provide more than merely PR

I doubt you are of the opinion that robust mouse rejuvenation would NOT provide more than PR. Right?

no results = no PR

Hiring a PR company to promote nothing wouldn't get very far. Why not have the results and get the PR for free?

It was a rhetorical and somewhat facetious statement.

But my point remains: it would be helpful if Aubrey would show a broad plan for how $100 million per year could be invested. Is there one?

it would be helpful if Aubrey would show a broad plan for how $100 million per year could be invested. Is there one?

I do not know if Aubrey has said anywhere where exactly every penny would go. This is most likely because if there is either more or less than the $100 million (per year), it would be silly to have exactly where every single cent goes. That being said, on his website, he pretty much lays out how he would do everything if the funding were available:

http://www.gen.cam.a...ens/IBGcase.htm

Basically, after the institute was created, there would be certain teams trying to solve different things, funded at between $2m to $15m per team per year spread over between 3 and 15 (or more) teams. Plus, a certain amount of funding would go to the MPrize, etc. He actually has done a fairly good job of detailing not only where the funding would be going but also a lot of the details of his proposal and why this is the type of approach that is needed. He does this without pigeonholing himself too much into definite amounts of money (which would be counterproductive).
Edited by liveforever22, 13 November 2005 - 07:43 AM.

Cheers, Liveforever22, thanks for pointing it out.

The main projects that IBG would support are those that:

- have a well-defined endpoint of reversing some presently irreversible aspect of human aging in a mouse model ;
- do not depend on any dramatic technological breakthroughs;
- are not being adequately funded by other routes; and
- have already been the subject of exploratory or closely related work.

(my emphasis)

I'm afraid that stringent adherence to the first criterium is scientifically unsound. Why should an investigator be restricted to the mouse as a model organism in order to tap into the IBG fund? The development of an intervention towards human trials sometimes includes the mouse as a model organism and sometimes it leap frogs it all together. The selection of model organism is a function of many variables. The suggestion that PR is part of that set diminishes the scientific credibility behind the IBG. Let's not forget that it is the people working on the bench who will produce the data that will lay the foundations for any anti-senescence interventions. Why make the discovery process more difficult?

Aubrey has sensibly admitted that the MPrize is primarily a PR exercise first and a research driver second. Why should the IBG, if it is intended to be a highly focused institute on developing a genuine cure for human aging, have the same priorities?

Prometheus - thanks for highlighting this point, which does need further elaboration in the document. (The document is being revamped at the moment, so the timing is good.) The reason for a restriction to mice is that the IBG is intended to have as its #1 goal the achievement of my "robust mouse rejuvenation" goal as soon as possible, on the basis that once that is achieved there will be 100 publicly funded IBG's going for human rejuvenation and my job will be as good as done. Put simply, RMR is a PR exercise just as the Mprize is - not so completely as the Mprize is, of course, because much of the science needed to achieve RMR will indeed translate to humans, but very substantially PR nonetheless.

That said, I think there is a case for the IBG going beyond mice in one specific area, namely cancer, simply because we lack a mouse model that resembles humans in regard to cancer well enough to make even a convincing case PR case, let alone a convincing science case, that if progress has been made in mice then it is foreseeable in humans. But that remains to be seen -- better mouse models of human cancer may emerge at any time.

Aubrey's Conference Video:

Aubrey de Grey Ph.D. : Spokesman for Human Immortality
http://www.blip.tv/file/5378

By Randolfe (Randy) Wicker

Videographer, Writer, Activist
Advisor: The Immortality Institute
Hoboken, NJ
http://www.randywick...g.blogspot.com/
201-656-3280

Video of Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Entire presentation now online by Joel Morgan:
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=191&t=8641