A Thoughtful Tribute to the Work of Aubrey de Grey
From Ouroboros yesterday, and well said: "Forty-five years ago, Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey was brought into the world. Today is his birthday, and it seems appropriate to briefly reflect on Aubrey's achievements to date and what he represents to biogerontology. At times brilliant, at times exasperating, Aubrey is unquestionably the world's most energetic popularizer of the idea that there is something we can do about aging - and not just a little something, mind you, but a very big something: we can end it, once and for all. In particular, he argues, we can take an engineer's approach to reversing or repairing several types of damage that characterize aging, and thereby eliminate the process of aging itself. ... it is good and right that we appreciate Aubrey for his energetic efforts in pushing a radical idea - that aging might someday be vanquished - out of the fringes and into the mainstream of modern biological thinking. Despite his differences with individual scientists (and sometimes with large groups of them, waving torches) he remains biogerontology's most prominent popularizer, and therefore in some sense the field's biggest fan." If Aubrey de Grey didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Link: http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/happy-birthday-aubrey-de-grey/