Coverage of Aubrey de Grey in the Florida Local Press
The SENS Research Foundation seeks to bring an end to aging and age-related disease, and to speed progress towards this goal carries out both research and advocacy. As a part of the outreach conducted by the staff and volunteers, co-founder Aubrey de Grey travels much of the world to give frequent presentations on the SENS approach to rejuvenation research to audiences of all sorts: life scientists, economists, actuaries, students, venture capitalists, advocacy groups, technology convention attendees, TED audiences, and so on. You can find many of these uploaded to YouTube, but there are just as many more that were not recorded at the time. De Grey has been doing this since the turn of the century, and as the opinions of researchers and those who listen to researchers have swayed towards support for treating the causes of aging to extend healthy life spans, the reception in the media has improved greatly. At some point in the last decade, it went from being possible to ridicule any sort of serious longevity science without repercussion to looking like a fool for doing so.
It is well worth noting that little has changed in the underlying science relating to SENS over that time, other than the ongoing progress towards its realization: the list of cell and tissue damage remains much the same, and a person familiar with the topic should have a similar expectation of ultimate success in the medical control of aging through therapies to repair damage whether in 2006 or 2016. What has changed greatly is opinion. There is probably a lesson there in how little consensus matters in comparison to truth and weight of evidence, and how little truth and weight of evidence matters to most people involved in propagating the consensus position. It is something to bear in mind, and it is always worth critically looking at your own beliefs to make sure that they are more than just the party line, for some party, somewhere. The consensus has a way of creeping in around the edges when you are not paying attention.
Today I ran across a couple of articles in the Florida local media resulting from a recent presentation given by Aubrey de Grey. I thought them noteworthy for treating this as just more medical science, something to be discussed respectfully. The times are changing, and as de Grey points out, the near future evolution of this process is one in which the lowest common denominator celebrities are presenting SENS viewpoints on aging and medicine in their own words on prime time television. Once the initial tipping point of about 10% support is reached in the matter of persuading the world to your view, the majority will come around to that view fairly rapidly thereafter. It is pleasing to see this happening.
Scientist envisions perpetual repair process for the human body
The British biomedical researcher Aubrey de Grey, in his quest to press the boundaries of the human lifespan to a point where they essentially no longer exist, often resorts to some provocative soundbites. Like: "Your chance of dying if you're 60 will be the same as your chance of dying if you're 30. That means that most people will live into four digits. Which sounds a bit scary. But get used to it, because it's going to happen." And: "In a worst-case scenario, we might end up having fewer kids than we would like, to make up for all these tedious people who were born a long time ago and haven't had the good grace to die yet." But he also wanted his multi-generational audience this week to understand that he is primarily interested in keeping people healthy.He described what he called the "sweet spot" between current geriatric treatments that only postpone the deterioration that comes with time, and the elusive ideal of escaping those pathologies through exercise, diet and preventive medicine. He proposed a third approach, which is to repair at certain intervals all the damage that the human body sustains over time, simply by existing. "The idea is that you keep one step ahead of the problem," he said. At the age of 60 or 70, he added, people "will be rejuvenated so that they won't be biologically 60 again until they're chronologically 90."
De Grey referred to the societal implications of life extension as a "side effect" of these future medical technologies, and said he believes those questions are up to our descendants. If we refuse to pursue the possibilities, he added, "We would be condemning a cohort of descendants to the same sort of painful death that our ancestors experienced." After two decades in the field, de Grey believes that consensus in the scientific world is catching up to his own research. "Five years from now," he predicted, "Oprah Winfrey's going to be giving you what I'm telling you. And then you're going to believe it."
Gerontologist tells USF Sarasota-Manatee crowd 'aging' can be reversed
"Tonight I am going to talk about how we are moving forward with research that will lead, in the foreseeable future, to the development of medicines that can rejuvenate the body completely," de Grey said. "In other words, medicines that can repair the molecular and cellular damage the body does to itself in the course of life." Why aren't drug companies on this? "The reason why drug companies are not yet jumping all over this is the same reason they never jump on really early stage drugs," de Grey said. "Drug companies just don't do any drug development anymore in the early stages. We are going to see drug companies jumping on these coming drugs like you have never seen before. We are not going to see it until organizations like the SENS Research Foundation have progressed far enough, however."Kathy Black, a gerontologist and a professor at USF Sarasota-Manatee, and Paula Bickford, a professor in the department of neurosurgery and brain repair at USF Tampa, gave de Grey an A-plus for innovation and diaglogue-sparking enthusiasm. They downgraded the doctor on some predictions. "I also study aging, and a lot of the things he said about the causes of aging were right on," Bickford said. "I disagree on a few things. You can't just cure arteriosclerosis and everyone is going to live a thousand years. We would have to target all those key things that are changing with aging and I am not sure we are going to be there as soon as he thinks we are."
Black weighed in: "Throughout history the human lifespan has never exceeded about 120. That is the part that I think traditional gerontologists are struggling with. There's a maximum life span for all species, including humans and that's the part we are waiting to see, and we are not quite sure, but innovative thinking and science can take us to places we don't know. So, I don't want to be entirely pessimistic. But I guess I just want to be more cautious." The first 30 extra years don't bother Black and Bickford as much as the next 30 years later, up to 150, they said. "Throughout history that has never occurred," Black said. "That's the one piece we are stuck on but we are willing to travel this road and see." "He's right as far as the areas that need to be targeted," Bickford said. "I just think you would have to target all seven or nine at the same time and maybe even more for this to be put in practice to actually get that 30 years."
Hi all,
I greatly respect his SENS organisation achievement and revolutionary work but saying four digits lifespan is coming is a bit rich, I believe there is not one single human alive, or one born in this entire 21st century up to 2100s, that will reach four digits 1000-year lifespan. It doesn't mean I don't believe in immortality or 4-digit lifespan biorejuvenation, I believe it Could be possible just very implausible, highly unlikely/improbable (statistically and odds wise it looks dysmal fractions of it happening, so small it's like being in south west coast Pacific California (such as fightaging is) hoping to catch an SOS message bottle sent from the sea by a long lost lover stuck on a drifting glacier in Groenland east coast Atlantic North Pole.. not gonna happen, ever).
I will tone down his message by removing one digit, one zero less at the end of the four digits and make Three Digits (not four, not two, but 3 Three digits).
Yeah... three digits seems something feasible because people already live 1, 2 and 3-digits lifespans; people who make it to the latter are lucky centenarians and 100 is the lowest three-digit lifespan possible. I have good news, we can add multipliers to that 100 x2, x3, x4, x5, now we would get 5 lives of the lowest three-digit lifespan (100), which would equal to half of the lowest four-digit lifespan (1000), in other words, or in other 'numbers' should I say. 500 year lifespan is very possible and has very low, but still decent/significative, likelyness of happening.
We can infer that because living complex animal specimens like quahog bivalve Iceland A.Islandicas reach 508 years old and giant clams N.Zibrowi reach 523 years old. Also, Bowhead whales and giant sea tortoise live 150 to 275 years old. These give realistic 3-digits lifespans, it's going to be how much we boost the multiplier x2, x3, x4 or Ultra Turbo-mode x5. X6 would be unheard of, X7.5 for 750 years, that would be Turbotastic.
@CANanonymity: You can believe what you want. There is freedom of belief. Science is different. You have to prove things.
In the Bradenton article, Aubrey is quoted as saying: "Drug companies just don't do any drug development anymore in the early stages."
That seems a little bit of a stretch. I recall there's now a tendency for big pharma to let the start-ups do the groundwork and then buy them up, but I don't think that internal drug development at early stages has completely stopped either.
On a different note, the articles are indeed quite balanced, which is encouraging as far as reporting goes.
@CANanonymity: The fundamental difference between repair of damage and tinkering metabolism to slow the onset of damage is that repair can in principle produce indefinite healthy life span.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_escape_velocity
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC423155/
"Since we are already so long lived, even a 30% increase in healthy life span will give the first beneficiaries of rejuvenation therapies another 20 years—an eternity in science—to benefit from second-generation therapies that would give another 30%, and so on ad infinitum. Quantitatively, what this means is that if a 10% per year decline of mortality rates at all ages is achieved and sustained indefinitely, then the first 1000-year-old is probably only 5–10 years younger than the first 150-year-old."
Any argument that mentions a certain number of years is DOA. That's not how aging works. Period. "Well nobody's ever lived to 150" or "I think that only three digits..." arguments simply do not make physical sense.
You repair systems, and you replace parts, and after you've fixed it, it contains the same atoms in the same structure as something that is young. Which means that it's, for all intents and purposes, young. "Aging" is not some magical attribute.
That's why they call it "rejuvenation". That's the whole point.
It is nice to discuss and tempting to try to put a set number on these things, however data is king and we simply cannot say either way until we test it and prove it.
I would however say that should the causes of dysfunction be mitigated there is no theoretical limit to lifespan. It is foolish to assign a number to the unknown and when scientists give figures like 150 these are only convenient numbers to illustrate a point and not set in stone.
It is nice to see the engineering approach finally starting to gain the respect it should get. However once again only testing it and proving it works will we make true strides forward.
@Reason: I don't understand this argument and in fact think that Aubrey is the first sinner here, given that he says that the first person to live to 150 is already born. Assuming a 'worst' case scenario in which this particular individual is already 90 (unlikely), he will be 150 in 2076, at which point I don't see how technology won't be advanced enough to keep his aging "under decisive control" ever after. While we don't know what will kill people in their 150s, we are pretty confident that by the end of the 21st century we will be able to manipulate matter at the atomic level.
@Antonio
Hi Antonio, Yes, it's just an opinion like that...and fully respect people who believe we are on the verge of immortality or 1000-year lifespan. I just hold a slight 'hold' on the whole thing, the data that has been produced by SENS and other reserach papers don't point do us being immortal (I don't think that...yes it's easy to say let's repeat 'repair' ad fitam eternam, I believe it too..but it is only on 'paper' until we make immortal mouse it's all in the 'theoritical' world of 'we can make 4-digit lifespan' until the proof comes in the skepticism holds a little bit of me, I am positive about it but as some said, cautiously optimistic, I just don't want to be deceived later on - if it fails (and I know most people think who support immortality/infinite repair/rejuvenation are like 'how exactly could it Ever fail ????'....
So let's have the 'proof is in the pudding', until we see some glucosepane breakers and invent those da*n nanorobots I regret to say we are in pure speculation. But, again, Antonio and everybody else, don't let my pessimism kill your optimism : )
@Reason
Hi Reason,
again what I said to Antonio. It's all speculative, reducing 10% mortality repeatedly and bingo we got immortality - this in theory purely. There may other variables that are not counted in and will affect this theoretical. I'm not trying to dismiss repairing aging cause, since damages are the cause, but we are so 'not out of the woods', we can't even break glucosepane and here we are with 4-digit lifespan,....hum there is like a slight exaggeration somewhere. Yes, it makes senses, a load of sense, if we repair and repeat the whole thing, we are technically immortal - but on paper. Not in reality - for now. When SENS makes and make-it-work-For-Real-not-just-on-paper those purported rejuvenation achievements, I will be the first to say sorry for having a tiny doubt that lingered along the way (to keep me sane :D). No, I'm not calling anyone insane here. I just mean,we must keep a little hold (in my language we say, ''garde-toi une tite gêne'' (meaning 'keep a tiny shyness/decency' about it).
@Slicer
Hi Slicer,
You have a knack for slicing-in' things ;) (ok I concede it to you, very cheezy bad joke)... ;D...but seriously, you are right, Aging is not a magical thing and we are about to crack that code...I just hold a very very slight 'hold' on it. Don't get me wrong, I have really (want) believe in it. It's also the reason why I joined this whole aging crusade (I feel like Ponce de Léon crusader searching ever that elixir and realizing I'm fooling myself and Grim Reaper is awaiting me,..sh*t... ;P)
@Steve H
Hi Steve! True...still these animals are a good representant of what is Realistically very Much More Possible and Likely...I'm not saying Biorejuvenation Can't do immortality but these animals are - a proof - that we could really make it to 500 years...we may not reach 500..but they did...so At Least we got - That Real Target Reference -. Proof is in the Pudding (sorry for 2cents worth jokes). We may say Biorejuvenation is Assured it will Make 1000 year lifespan.. but are we that Sure/Assured/Confident/BulletProofGarantee or just bragging/deludin a bit on the side...see what I mean...
@Barbara T
Hi Barbara ! Thank you for your insight....I understand you hold on it too, it's only normal that we have some questioning towards those technologies. I have faith in it but I also doubt the fate of it.
I think that atomic manipulation is already something that somewhat happening (I could be totally out in the 'nuclear atomic' field..here I know nothing of that)...the more times goes...the more I feel Ham's sinking feeling. You know like in movies..where the character keeps on running running to reach that door...but the door...it keeps on going 'away' as if it's never reachable...the protagonists just gives up...I know we must survive and be the survivalists and never give up. It's just hard to maintain optimism when things tdon't go has planned and 'piles of new problems' arrive....
@Barbara T: Why do you assume a worst case scenario? Actually, I think what you say is a best case scenario. AFAIK, in all cases when AdG assigns a (present) age to that "already born first 150 years old", he always says that he is currently middle-aged, that is, 50-60 years old. Assuming he is 90 years old now is really a best case scenario (one in which SENS is developed really fast).
It is the 'worst' case scenario for the argument that Aubrey et al. are making (which I am disputing), namely that the first person to reach 150 is only 5-10 years younger than the first person who will live to 1000. This because if the first person to live to 150 were already 90 today, we would need to have total control of aging in 2076 as opposed to 2106, which would be the case if the first person to reach 150 were 60 today.
Considering that we will likely have mature nanomedicine well before the end of this century, the idea that people alive at the dawn of the 22nd century won't be able to stay permanently young seems, to me, even weaker. In other words, whoever gets to live to 150 has a good chance of seeing their 1000th birthday.
Of course if it were my 91 year old grandma to be the first person to reach 150, that would be definitely the 'best' case scenario for me.
CANanonymity said:
"Hi Antonio, Yes, it's just an opinion like that...and fully respect people who believe we are on the verge of immortality or 1000-year lifespan. I just hold a slight 'hold' on the whole thing, the data that has been produced by SENS and other reserach papers don't point do us being immortal (I don't think that...yes it's easy to say let's repeat 'repair' ad fitam eternam, I believe it too..but it is only on 'paper' until we make immortal mouse"
Not really. What you say is a common phalacy used against many engineering endeavours, for example, cryonics. The fact that something has never beeen tried doesn't mean that we don't know anything about its feasibility, that is, its success probability is 50% or very low.
For example, we never send humans to Mars, but doesn't mean that it can't be done, or that we don't know whether it's possible. We never went there, but we know a lot about rocket science, we put men in orbit, we landed in the Moon, etc. The probability is not unknown. We know it can be done, if enough money and expertise is put on it.
The same can be said for cryonics. We know that brain tissue is fairly preserved. We have unfrozen rabbit kidneys and they were functional, etc. Yes, we never unfroze an human, but that doesn't mean that cryonics is unscientific or that we don't know if it will work.
We already know a lot about what damages cause aging, how much of it accumulates every decade, etc. We know mortality rates for every age. So, if a 90yo is rejuvenated to 60yo, that is, its mortality rate is like that of a 60yo, maths tell us how much he will live and how much time we have to develop the next generation of therapies of the same kind. Unknown kinds of damage, if they exist, must accumulate much slowly than the known kinds (if not, we would know about them already). And the additional years we obtain for every new generation of therapies increase exponentially.
@Barbara T.: But why do you assume that she is already 90 years old? That is not part of AdG's claim that she is already alive, and also it isn't needed for the "the first 1000-year-old is only 5–10 years younger than the first 150-year-old" argument.
I am not assuming that the first person to live to 150 is already 90. What I am saying is that even if she were, the "the first person to live to 1000 is only 5-10 years younger than the first person to live to 150" argument does not seem very convincing, since by 2076 we should have total control of aging. If the first person to live to 150 were 60 today as Aubrey says, then the "5-10 years younger" argument would be even LESS solid.
I think much of the way the SENS arguments are illustrated, from LEV to risk of death, are a bit simplistic. For example:
"So, if a 90yo is rejuvenated to 60yo, that is, its mortality rate is like that of a 60yo, maths tell us how much he will live and how much time we have to develop the next generation of therapies of the same kind".
Problem is, it is unlikely that we will turn a 90 year old into a perfect 60 year old. Perhaps we will have a 90 year old with the senescent environment of a 52 year old, the glucosepane levels of a 37 year old, and the cancer risk of an 80 year old. In this case, mortality rates will be highly dependent on the efficacy of the available cancer treatments.
I am not saying that there are, currently, better ways to predict how long we will have to develop more advanced therapies once the first rejuvenation kit hits the market, but I can see why people may become a bit skeptical once they start thinking about the details of the sales pitch.
@Antonio
You are right, it's not because we never did it that it is impossible; in fact, like you say, some things were invented 'like that' and they were almost 'impossible' (odds wise) but it turned out otherwise (like the example of flying in space to moon/mars...). I hope and wish to proven wrong : D
But for how long ? Has some stated Aubrey De Grey is 50s, he got 60 or so years left - or less. SENS is already more than a decade........how many decades is it gonna take and will Aubrey be still alive by then ? It's sad if the creator dies before his lifetime achievement is even't complete (like a post-humous/post-death discovery of all the 7 or so SENS therapies working in combination and making 4-digit lifespan; after his death). But, thank god, though he is not alone in SENS, as it's many researchers working on the therapies and others will pick up his SENS (if he goes away too soon) and 'carry it on'. That's the worse case scenario that I hope does not happen (but it could, like in 50 years we still have not resolved some of the fundamentals of damage in aging or heck...nanorobots are after all, a total fail).
But we don't know. We don't know the future, it can (and most likely will) surprise us - in a good (hopefully) or bad way (not hopefully).
A paper that analyzes these predictions: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267031/
@Antonio
Thanks for that, Aubrey de Grey's paper on longevity escape velocity is very telling, but what's more telling is that it is a 2007 research and he invented that in 2004. Time goes fast since he proposed that model and it looks like his paper is not exactly escaping velocity of time or anything.
How can after a decade things be still ultra-slow, I understand it takes a long time for these rejuvenation to take place when you are crowd-funded with less financials means to begin with, but some therapy should have showed up by now. He says, in his paper, it takes some 36 years for a single damage repair therapy to happen, if his model predicted that, it's not exactly good news for us; who has 36 years to wait ? Not even Aubrey has that time left because by then, he would be almost 90 years old, and even then, that's if he did not die before reaching 90.
If we have to wait almost 40 years for just one of their therapies, it's game over for us
Thanks for the paper. I think it's great that modelling is being done.
Having said that, cures for each component of aging appearing one at a time every 6 years (so 36 years to address them all) seems quite an arbitrary variable. While it's true that currently "once [...] breakthroughs have been made, their cumulative refinement by individually modest advances proceeds at a rather predictable rate", therapies might arrive in pairs, at unpredictable intervals, and immediately do more than just halve existing damage. Moreover, this "predictable rate" may hold true for this century but will likely change over the next 350 years, which is how far into the future the prediction stretches.
I think that the value of this paper is that it shows that "the amount of damage present in the body can be kept low, with a negligible rate of age-related death per year, irrespective of a person’s age" in a way that should convince even the most unimaginative skeptic that negligible senescence is theoretically achievable. However, I suspect that in reality things will happen in a very different way - once critical mass has been reached - with SENS progress moving in leaps and bounds, help coming in from external sides (e.g AI, robotics etc), and synergies appearing between therapies for different categories of damage.
It has to be pointed out too that the paper was published in 2007, which is a long time ago for a field that is moving so fast.
So my point is, while modelling, predictions such as "the first person who will live to 1000 is 5-10 years younger than the first person to reach 150", or slogans like "creat[ing] a world where 90-year olds can be as healthy as 50-year olds by 2030" (which, by the way, does not agree with the Phoenix and de Grey paper) are useful for garnering attention, it should be acknowledged that if repair strategies do indeed start emerging in the next couple of decades, no one has a clue as to what mortality rates will look like in the second half of this century.
The danger with all these calculations and predictions is also that it can lull 30 year olds into a sense of false security (80% chance of living to 350+ according to the paper) while giving no hope to old folk - amongst whom, we must remember, there are a few megabillonaires whose money the SENS foundation could certainly do with.
My apologies I read too quick, his paper says it's 36 years wait for the First therapy only. After that, therapies are each 6 years. Sounds more reasonable, still we got more than 30 years to wait for the first one.
@Barbara T.
Very interesting and thoughtful assessment.
I think the most important take-away point of his research paper is the simple one but the one we forget; these models must be based on Already-accumulated damages, otherwise they are futilely trying to map aging without factoring (past) damage accrual Current total, which progressively changes the whole results. And, hence, why 80 year olds, from the model, by their total life damage accrual render the therapy almost nill in effect, while a 30 year old has 'workable levels' of past damage accrual - just 30 years of damage. He/She's still salvageable for the 350 years lifespan, whereas the 80 year old because of mortality rise and frailty from total damage accrual, he/she's almost unsalvageable, not much more beyond current MLSP 122 years.
Hi CANanonymity:
"How can after a decade things be still ultra-slow"
The paper analizes the rate of life extension increase once robust human rejuvenation is attained. It doesn't try to predict when RHR will come.
AdG did do some estimates about when RHR will come, basically two:
- _If_properly_funded_ there is a 50/50 chance of reaching RHR in the next 25 years.
- There is a 10% chance that RMR is not developed in this century.
Note the caveat about funding. We simply haven't had the needed funding in all these years. The needed funding for robust _mouse_ rejuvenation is around $100M per year during a decade. Robust human rejuvenation will be more costly, but probably companies will be involved, once we have RMR.
The last prediction about RMR I know of is this: https://www.quora.com/If-SENS-funding-remains-stable-how-many-years-away-are-we-from-robust-mouse-rejuvenation
Typo: the 10% prediction is about RHR, not RMR.
Barbara T. said:
"Problem is, it is unlikely that we will turn a 90 year old into a perfect 60 year old. Perhaps we will have a 90 year old with the senescent environment of a 52 year old, the glucosepane levels of a 37 year old, and the cancer risk of an 80 year old. In this case, mortality rates will be highly dependent on the efficacy of the available cancer treatments."
Robust human rejuvenation definition is about all-cause mortality rates. A "90-years-old rejuvenated to 60-years-old" means that she has the mortality rate (for any cause of death) of a 60-years-old. If you have more mortality than that, wathever the cause, then you haven't reached RHR.
CANanonymity said: "My apologies I read too quick, his paper says it's 36 years wait for the First therapy only. After that, therapies are each 6 years. Sounds more reasonable, still we got more than 30 years to wait for the first one."
Also, it's 6 years for one category of damage, not for all. That is, at year n we remove half of remaining cross-links, at year n+6 we remove half of remaining mutated mitochondria, at year n+12 we remove half of remaining amyloids, etc.
I saw in a recent interview that Aubrey said he thinks RMR could happen in 10 years. I can't find the interview on mobile right now. I'll link it when I get home if I can find it.
@Ham we will be trying to shave some years off of RMR. We have a cunning plan :)
@Steve: Is there a mailing list to keep us informed about latest news of MMTP?
Oh, sorry, now I found it. Subscription didn't work with my browser, but now I used another computer and could subscribe.
If you have RMR then you will have RHR very shortly afterwards, not just because of the science but because of the funding. "That mouse won't die of old age? Holy crap, can you do to me what you did to that mouse?!" Proofs of concept are a big deal.
"Perhaps we will have a 90 year old with the senescent environment of a 52 year old, the glucosepane levels of a 37 year old, and the cancer risk of an 80 year old."
Ding ding ding. Nail on the head right here.
Again, as we've all been told many, many times, aging is not one thing. It is many things that act in tandem, synergizing towards death. Just one of its aspects can and will eventually kill you by itself (or dramatically make your life harder), but all of them put together spell certain doom.
So it's not all-cause mortality that's the goal, it's each-cause mortality. If a 90-year-old doesn't have the same cancer risk, stroke risk, blood pressure, brain volume, and diabetes risk as a 20-year-old, RHR has not been achieved. In fact, if you can even so much as tell the difference between the two with a physical inspection, you don't have true RHR.
And the only way we can get to true RHR is piecemeal. No magic bullets.
Also, to be clear: We obviously won't have full RMR before rejuvenative therapies (which we arguably have the basics of already in some aspects) reach the clinic. Because to have full RMR, all aspects of aging for a mouse would need to be cured. The therapies of some aspects will reach humans before the most difficult aspects (whatever those are) are cured in mice.
The point of proof of concept still holds true, however. If you can break glucosepane in mice (even though glucosepane isn't what kills ordinary mice), you can do it in humans or will be able to shortly.
If any team of researchers ever goes "Oh hi, we've defeated a piece of aging in mice", that will swiftly lead to "Now do it in humans," which will swiftly lead most reasonable investors to ask "Okay, now how about the rest?"
You make the tyrant bleed and people will start to think it can die.