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I've directed a fair amount of the focus of the Longevity Meme and Fight Aging! towards stem cell research and related regenerative medicine over the past few years. It has been the largest and most obvious battle over freedom of research, a topic I think is very important for long term progress. In addition, stem cell technologies will help - directly or indirectly - to extend healthy life span in the years ahead. Cures for common age-related diseases are the direct approach, though this is not as helpful as you might think from the point of view of extending maximum life span. Any number of other age-related conditions lurk, waiting to be discovered as our life spans grow longer. Cures for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and so forth will add years for those who would have suffered and died, but don't do much to the underlying processes of aging that limit our maximum life span.
The knowledge we gain regarding the biochemical and genetic workings of our cells in the course of stem cell research is pure gold - it will speed, assist and enable all sorts of research into finding and addressing the mechanisms of the aging process. We don't want to find out (the hard way) about new age-related conditions that lie beyond Alzheimer's. Rather, we want to learn to halt the aging process in its tracks; prevent degeneration and damage or repair it as it happens so that we don't have to devise ever more complex strategies to deal with the end results of aging.
But back to the battle over stem cell research: think it's safe to say that we're over the hump. Most people are aware of (and comparatively well educated about) the benefits of stem cell research, funding is widely supported and anti-research legislation opposed. There were only a few noteworthy advocates a few years ago - now there are well-organized hundreds ... and news sites, blogs, press attention and all that goes with it. The battle continues, but I think that anti-research groups have as good as lost - the forces arrayed against them are too strong; it is human nature to grasp at new medicine with both hands once the benefits are clear. The worst that the anti-research groups can do is to continue to delay the development of stem cell based therapies for age-related conditions - a little here, a little there.
Overall, this means that I will be spending more time in the future on aging and longevity rather than stem cells - unless there is direct relevance. Stem cell research and advocacy is well underway, but serious anti-aging research is not. However well things are going elsewhere in the world of medicine, that remains a big problem.
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Posted by Reason
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