Fight Aging!

Longevity advocate and biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey presented at the technology gathering Activate 2010 in London today, and here's a short interview:

I plan to focus [my presentation] on the acceleration of progress in technology (with an emphasis on biomedical technology, naturally) that arises from the internet's facilitation of communication between scientists, technologists and the general public. Public enthusiasm for new advances is a key ingredient in influencing policy-makers to stimulate follow-up work with suitable funding, and it can be achieved far faster now that interested non-specialists can explore new research autonomously and can also be appealed to directly by scientists. I will illustrate this with a few examples from my foundation's work.

One of the Guardian bloggers gives a little space to de Grey's presentation in his live coverage of the event.

10.18am: Emily Bell now orchestrating a Q&A. Aubrey de Grey went down a storm with the audience. A plethora of contenders for Quote of the Day.

Question to de Grey: What about overpopulation?

de Grey: Those of us who want to be our own next generation have the right to be. How do we know that we're going to have any problem in this way. Birth rate going down, average age of women having first child is going up, which is very important. Unless you think it's okay to condemn people to death just because they were born a long time ago...[audience laughter stops him short of finishing].

Continuing the theme, I see that the BBC World Service has published a recent audio interview with de Grey at their website:

"Who wants to live forever?" sang Freddy Mercury. Fair question, though from the discussions on our Facebook site, few people actually do. Forever seems like, well, such a long time. One Planet's considering the question thanks to a conference taking place in Barcelona entitled the "Congress on controversies in longevity, health and aging". In short, scientists will debate age prevention.

In this week's show we catch up with Dr Aubrey de Grey, one of the world's leading thinkers in the field of gerontology (the study of aging). Before heading off to that conference, Dr Aubrey debates with Mike the ethics and practicalities of age prevention.

If you like what you hear, consider donating to the SENS Foundation to help advance the science of human rejuvenation: finding ways to repair the known biochemical damage of aging.