Aubrey de Grey's Seminar at Science World 2009
Here's video of a recent presentation by biomedical gerontologist and longevity science advocate Aubrey de Grey: "Dr Aubrey de Grey, author of the book 'Ending Ageing', explains in a clear, concise way in which it may be possible to add years onto the average life expectancy of a human being. Biological ageing is a progressive, degenerative process of decay. As ageing damage accumulates in our functional cellular and molecular structures, the healthy order laid down in our youth slowly falls apart. This damage occurs, as a result, of a series of unintended biochemical side effects of normal metabolism. As more and more of our cellular and molecular structures suffer this damage, functionality is lost, and health, resilience and vitality are slowly taken away from us, leading to increasing age-related pathology. Thus, metabolism causes ongoing ageing damage; this eventually accumulates to reach a critical mass at which it causes age-related frailty, disability, disease, and ultimately death. Aubrey looks at what approaches are already being taken e.g. in the areas of Geriatrics and Gerontology and introduces a third theoretical approach: SENS, which targets the damage of ageing itself, bringing it down to levels below the threshold at which it causes problems."
Link: http://www.fisher.co.uk/medialab/index_player.php?vid=45