Fight Aging!

The last third of a Pharmaceutical Business Review article caught my eye; it links the technologies of regenerative medicine with Aubrey de Grey's Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence proposals.

One of the more forward looking applications of human cloning research could be a 'cure' for aging, or at least the reduction of its effects and an increase in human longevity. Aubrey de Grey, a leading gerontologist, is a proponent of regenerative medicine, the emerging industry focused on the treatment strategy of replacing malfunctioning cells with fully functioning ones. He suggests a number of ways in which the 'disease' of aging can be stopped, or at least slowed down. One of his theories states that we could prevent age-related cancers by replacing our own stem cells with genetically engineered stem cells in which the genes that encode telomere-elongation are deleted.

These ideas could imply the use of genetic engineering alongside human cloning techniques to develop specific, disease free tissues that could be replaced as necessary. The prospect of human life expectancy extending well into an individual's second century, and maybe beyond, throws up some bizarre questions. A crucial consideration here is not just extending the period at the end of life or drawing out old age, but lengthening people's productive and active lives. Would longer lives mean lower birth rates? Or could we continue to extend our reproductive capacity as well? Furthermore, who would pay for the groundbreaking technology enabling them to live longer? The cost could be prohibitive to all but the wealthy few, meaning the 'haves' can live forever, but where does that leave everyone else?

Interesting - and promising - to now see this sort of discussion cropping up as the logical end to an article on therapeutic cloning, stem cells and regenerative medicine, regardless of the technical merits or accuracy of the piece. The slew of objections to healthy life extension have been addressed here before, needless to say.

(Feel free to critique in the comments, however).