Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: life extension – Page 662

Of mice and old men: is the elixir of youth finally coming of age?

Preliminary work suggests that T-cells, which normally target disease, can be genetically engineered to target senescent cells in a wide range of tissues. In future, an infusion of GM blood every few years might be able to keep you going indefinitely (assuming some major advances in treating cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease). At which point, the question might be less: “How long have I got?” and more: “How long do you fancy sticking around?”

American scientists have coined the term ‘senolytics’ to describe a new class of drugs designed to delay the ageing process by clearing out doddery cells.

Want to live forever? Ray Kurzweil thinks that may be possible very soon

When rock band Queen asked us “Who wants to live forever?” back in 1986, we interpreted it as standard lyrical rhetoric. But now, three decades and what feels like light years in technological, medical, and scientific advances later, the answer to that age-old question may have changed. And according to Ray Kurzweil, the famous American inventor who has been described as the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison,” we’re nearing immortality.

As the man responsible for the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer, and much more, Kurzweil has a knack for spotting trends and anticipating the future. And if history is any indication (and his word stays true), we may be in for a long, long lifetime.

In an episode of PBS’s News Hour last week, Kurzweil noted that death, which he describes as “a great robber of meaning, of relationships, of knowledge,” will soon be conquered. Indeed, the futurist notes, our species will soon be able to defeat disease and degeneration, and live “indefinitely.”

Why We Need a Transhumanism Movement

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A crowd gathers to hear about transhumanism and life extension technologies — Photo by Roen Horn

Recently I was asked to be a part of a debate for British think-tank Demos and their quarterly magazine. In the debate, The University of Sheffield Professor Richard Jones and I faced off over the merits and faults of transhumanism. You can read the entire debate here, but I wanted to focus on one part of it, where Jones questions why there’s a need for a transhumanism movement at all.

I used to get asked the question Jones raised all the time. Luckily, the amount of people that ask it has declined, partially because transhumanism has grown so much in popularity. Many people nowadays simply accept transhumanism as part of tech and science culture.

That said, I believe it’s worth sharing my thoughts on why a “transhumanism movement” is needed. Here was my answer in the debate:

Futurenews: A fun list to read

The quest for immortality isn’t something new. Longevity and eternal youth have frequently been sought after down through the ages, and efforts to keep from dying and fight off age have a long and interesting history. Legends about such things as ‘the Elixir of Life’, universal panaceas, and ‘the Fountain of Youth’ can be found in many different cultures from around the world, and the pursuit for immortality actually seems to be as old as mankind itself. Although divided by many generations of great men, the feelings of sheer helplessness and hopelessness that Ray Kurzweil must have felt when he experienced the loss of his father, strongly resembles those of Gilgamesh, the ancient Sumerian king, when he mourned over his friend Enkidu almost 5000 years earlier. As a matter of fact, mortality has probably haunted our conciuousness since the first human in horror witnessed death; and thus realized his or her own eventual demise

Humanity has been in a bitter war with ‘the Grim Reaper’ ever since.

“Six days and seven nights I mourned over him, and I would not allow him to be buried until a maggot fell out of his nose. I was terrified [by his appearance]. I began to fear death, and so roam the wilderness.” –Gilgamesh

Sci-fi author has brain cryogenically frozen so it can be reanimated in the future

If I am not mistaken she edited The Three Body Problem, she did not write it.

In what seems like a story ripped straight from the pages of an Isaac Asimov novel, a recently deceased Chinese woman named Du Hong just had her brain cryogenically frozen in hopes that, in the future, the technology to bring her back to life will be created. No joke. Hong, a science fiction author herself, paid upwards of $120k to have her brain sent from China to Scottsdale, Arizona to undergo a freezing procedure at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Her idea is that while modern tech doesn’t allow for the reanimation of her brain today, inevitable advancements in cryonics will one day bring her back to life.

Before passing away last May from pancreatic cancer, the 61-year-old Du decided she wanted to allow her brain to be the subject of experiments after her death. Though it took some time before the team at Alcor actually conducted the procedure, doctors in Beijing prepped Du’s brain after her official time of death on May 30. Despite the Alcor Life Extension Foundation agreeing to freeze Du’s brain, the organization made it clear that it wouldn’t be the one to actually attempt to bring Du back to life in the future.

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The immortalist: Uploading the mind to a computer

While many tech moguls dream of changing the way we live with new smart devices or social media apps, one Russian internet millionaire is trying to change nothing less than our destiny, by making it possible to upload a human brain to a computer, reports Tristan Quinn.

“Within the next 30 years,” promises Dmitry Itskov, “I am going to make sure that we can all live forever.”

It sounds preposterous, but there is no doubting the seriousness of this softly spoken 35-year-old, who says he left the business world to devote himself to something more useful to humanity. “I’m 100% confident it will happen. Otherwise I wouldn’t have started it,” he says.

Welcome to Major Mouse Testing Project | Major Mouse Testing Project

SENS has kindly commented about MMTP and the impact our research should have on aging. We launch a fundraiser in April to test senolytics (ApoptoSENS) with a planned follow up to combine this with stem cell therapy (RepleniSENS). It is time to put the engineering approach to aging to the test!

Some drugs tested have been found to increase mouse lifespan such as Metformin and Rapamycin for example and are considered for human testing. Many more substances have never been tested and we do not know if they might extend healthy lifespan.

An Interview With The Major Mouse Testing Program: We Talk Longevity Advocacy And Fast Tracking Progress

Innovative new project the MMTP aims to fast forward translation from lab to clinic with rapid, parallel mice testing. We caught up with Steve Hill and Elena Milova from the MMTP team to discuss the program and why being pro-actively involved with longevity advocacy is so important.

What’s the gap in the market you’re aiming to fill and the major motivation behind the MMTP?

Steve – The bridge between basic research and taking it to clinical trials. People like The SENS Foundation are spinning a lot of plates doing the high risk, nitty gritty research that isn’t profitable, but crowdfunding can get that done. We want to create a solid gold standard testing platform without the restrictions of government, where any team can come to us for parallel testing and halve development time. The problem with animal testing is there’s this disconnect; it’s not sexy science basically. A common response is let me know when it’s available in humans, but it’s not going to be! No animal data means no human testing, organizations like the FDA, NHS and EMA all insist on a battery of animal testing before human trials. Period. It’s not sexy, it’s not available in humans next week, but if MMTP or other projects don’t get things done on mice for example, it’s never going to get done. It doesn’t matter if one theory turns out to be wrong, let’s get stuck in and find out!