So You Want To Live Forever — Part 1
Maybe you can
Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D., chief science officer and co-founder of the SENS Research Foundation, believes some of the people living today will still be alive 1,000 years from now.
A biomedical gerontologist, de Grey believes the physical damages of aging can be reversed through medication. He is not alone.
Dr. Nir Barzilai, MD, agrees with de Grey that human life can be extended dramatically. He is director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging.
While Barzilai does not dispute de Grey’s projections, he’s looking a little shorter term.
“We die at 80. Getting an additional 35 years is relatively low-hanging fruit,” Barzilai told WebMD. “But I don’t believe that is a fixed limit.”
A cure for aging
Barzilai, de Grey, and other researchers are targeting age as a preventable condition.
As we age, our cells wear down and eventually stop multiplying. That leaves our genes more likely to mutate which can lead to cancer. In addition, the capacity of mitochondria, which release energy from food to power cells, declines. That can…
