07
Feb
2004
On John Sperling, Or "What To Do With Three Billion Dollars"
The recent Wired article on John Sperling has the healthy life extension community very happy. Here is an enormously wealthy individual who is prepared to stand up and made a difference to the future of medicine and the business of extending the healthy human life span. While a number of insiders were already familiar with some of John Sperling's projects (such as the successful Kronos Company; a very interesting venture in and of itself, worthy of a longer commentary even without considering the larger scheme of which it is a part).
I just found out about the article over at the Orkut Transhumanists community, and of course I check here and it was already covered days ago. When I read this part:
'"In research, we will be radical," he claims, and to back that up, he points to Cutler's plan to engineer a long-lived supermouse that could help illuminate the aging-related genes in people.'
...I wonder how much money he is getting to engineer this supermouse and whether they are aware of the Methuselah Mouse project. It would seem a good idea to hedge their bets and throw some money at MM to encourage a supermouse to be developed by someone while at the same time ensuring that at least one person is directly working on the problem.
I am also really excited that he feels the war on drugs is part of the overall problem and needs to come to and end and is willing to put in money to make it happen. Overall, this article and the subject whom it is about is amazing.