Fight Aging!

In any given year Aubrey de Grey, cofounder of the SENS Research Foundation, gives a great many presentations on his vision for the successful treatment and reversal of aging: at scientific conferences, for life insurance companies, in front of advocacy group meetups, and more. A sizable fraction of his work and the work of many of the staff at the Foundation is in essence persuasion. After all, the only reason we are not well on our way towards the robust demonstration of rejuvenation in old mice is that most people don't care about building new medical technologies to treat aging, and don't give much thought to the prospects for defeating age-related disease. There is consequently very little funding for the relevant research programs; you can compare and contrast the present state of aging research and its lack of support with the way society at large thinks about cancer and the size of the cancer research establishment. Two very different mindsets and very different research communities as a result.

Here is video of a presentation given last week to Google employees in London. It includes some implementation progress reports from the past few years that may or may not be news to you, depending on how closely you've been keeping track of the field. When you spend your time following along with your nose to the news feed, sometimes it is pleasant to step back and note that SENS has moved a fair way down the path from "here is a plan, and this is what we should do," and well into the realm of "this is what we're doing, and here is where we are now." A lot of people worked hard and donated generously to make that progress happen, and beyond that it is a testament to just how much you can do with a few million dollars in early stage biotechnology research these days: prices are falling even as capabilities improve dramatically.

Google brings in a lot of noted people to present to company employees, so don't read anything into this. I believe de Grey has presented there in the past, long before the California Life Company, Google's new venture into longevity science, came into being. He will probably present again in the future, regardless of whether Calico heads off into the wilderness of the genetics of human longevity or the leadership there choose to fund something more likely to produce meaningful results and treatments for aging, such as SENS-like repair biotechnologies.