Fight Aging!

Aubrey de Grey of the SENS Research Foundation recently spoke on the future of rejuvenation biotechnology at a technology conference in Beijing. The Chinese language press have the text of his presentation - you'll need to use a tool such as Google Translate, though note that Chinese is one of those languages with a way to go yet in the quality of the automated translation.

This is the second time I came to Beijing, the first time I came to Beijing a decade ago, and I want to tell you the last time I came here, I was very disappointed, because few people heard my message. For I represent academia, and as a scholar I want to let many people know what I am talking about. Today we are here at the future forums, and earlier we have heard a lot of wonderful speech. Venture capitalists talked about a lot of big companies and big capital. Now we are in a good position to talk about control of aging, which is what we mean by rejuvenation biotechnology. Our technology in constant development and innovation in rejuvenation can help us achieve this vision, so that maybe in the future we can develop the ability to control the emergence of age-related human diseases, and and as a consequence improve the people's quality of life and well-being. As all human beings suffer the problems of aging, the problem may be the most serious in China, in the world, too, and so I believe that the issue of aging is a very difficult problem, is a very important issue, and is the human face put on a very grim reality. So today I want to discuss a topic of rejuvenation biotechnology, using biotechnology to achieve rejuvenation.

I do believe it will happen soon, and I will give you two reasons to make you believe as well. First and foremost we have to accept that the scientific community has accepted our view on rejuvenation biotechnology: we have published scientific papers and articles in top journals, and thus scientists have accepted that these researchers are leading scientists. Many researchers in different scientific fields have collaborated on this project. I can also point to our leading scientific advisers, who provide us with support and endorsement. Another way to make everyone believe that this is the fact, that I am not blindly optimistic, is that I can show you the work in progress. This image under the microscope is the number one killer in the world, the foam cells and damaged lipids that gather to block our blood vessels. With the continuous accumulation of damage and waste in blood vessels, macrophages continue to arrive and turn into more foam cells to make the problem worse. We have found a way to prevent this from happening, using bacterial enzymes that naturally consume these waste compounds, we modify them so that they can be effective in therapy. We have shown that using these bacteria, through genetic modification, it is possible to reduce the body's sterol content, which will improve healthy longevity.

We do not know how rapidly any of the advanced science needed will arrive, but it is likely that we can achieve the goals of rejuvenation biotechnology in 20-25 years to achieve, which would give us enough time to benefit. With time left in my last moment, I would like to talk entrepreneurial spirit: I have created this organization, the SENS Research Foundation, and I now have ten to twelve years of history working towards these goals in non-profits rather than the private sector so as to obtain the support of the scientific community. The science has made great progress, and now investors are interested - so you can get involved in this, and make a lot of profit. I think it is not the case that therapies will appear in twenty years, but rather that the first medical technology will be implemented in the next few years. People will realize that we can end aging as the technology appears, and will get involved. As things stand now worldwide, especially in China, the world's worst aging problem at the moment is that people have not yet begun to be involved.

Link: http://tech.sina.com.cn/d/f/2016-01-17/doc-ifxnqriz9765311.shtml