Aubrey de Grey in a Webcast on CNN.com

Biomedical gerontologist and advocate for engineered longevity Aubrey de Grey participates in this CNN webcast: "Geneticist Aubrey de Grey is the Chief Scientific Officer of SENS Foundation, which researches and promotes regenerative medicine. He said that techniques such as stem cell therapy, gene therapy and tissue engineering could one day be used in combination to let humans live for hundreds of years. ... The real advantage of applying regenerative medicine to the problem of ageing is that we can actually turn the biological clock backwards. We [will be able to] take people who are already middle aged, or perhaps older, and turn them back to having a lower biological age. ... In the run up to the Webcast, CNN readers submitted questions for the panel. One asked if living for a 1,000 years would mean spending the last 200 years of your life in a nursing home. De Grey answered that regenerative medicine has the potential to stop the degeneration process, meaning people could stay in a youthful state indefinitely. The panelists agreed that dramatically increasing human life expectancy would have huge consequences for society and the economy. But they added that, rather than being a huge drain on healthcare systems, providing regenerative medicine on a widespread basis could actually benefit the economy, cutting down on medical costs by eliminating chronic illnesses like heart disease and cancer."

Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/30/live.longer.webcast/index.html

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