Videos from the 2019 Longevity Forum in London

I am a few months late in noting this: videos from last year's Longevity Forum, one of the events in the Longevity Week held in London in November 2019, in what now seems an entirely different world, were posted online earlier this year. The Longevity Forum is organized by Jim Mellon and allies, a part of his diverse efforts to advance the growth of a longevity-focused medical industry capable of turning back aging and significantly lengthening healthy life spans.

The Forum is focused on non-profits, regulatory concerns, and government policy rather than on industry, but there are nonetheless interesting presentations. The purpose here is to help educate decision makers and the public as to what researchers and the longevity industry is working on, the plausible emergence of much longer lives in the near future, and to suggest that some thought should go into smoothing the path to the clinic ahead of time.

This is a big tent sort of a venture, and you'll find people working on rejuvenation therapies rubbing shoulders with those who limit their considerations to exercise programs for seniors. Then throw into the mix noted non-profit fundraisers, policy makers, and other interested parties. I've noted a couple of the presentation videos; there are others, so by all means take a look at the full list.

Panel: How can the UK add five years of healthy lifespan by 2030

This panel will explore the recent advances in pro-longevity therapies, including small molecules, stem cells, regenerative medicine , microbiome and gene therapy. All of these are, to varying degrees, in human trials and the combination of these exciting developments and the fact that ageing pathways have been proven to be malleable, make the bioengineering of human beings to live longer and more robustly a strong likelihood, rather than an historically improbable aspiration. Indeed, it is clear that the science of biogerontology is rapidly catching up with the desire of most of us to live longer and in better health.

Aubrey de Grey: Scientists, check, Investors, check, Next up, policy makers

Aubrey de Grey delivers a keynote on the next steps for longevity for policy makers. Dr Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based in Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) biomedical research charity that performs and funds laboratory research dedicated to combating the ageing process.

Comments

Hey there! Just a 2 cents.

This is great, now it can be done 'online' this year...AdG needs to start talking of what kind of damage they are repairing cannot let people in the dark forever; must talk of advancements; otherwise SENS or other ventures will come 'obscure/niche'...forgotten '2010s...ventures'...forgotten, we are in 2020, I understand we do not wish to make 'false promises' and it 'will be done when it will be done' (which could be long); but he needs to talk of the Biological aspects that are improving and not just talk aof senolytics...more than that, talk of DNA damage repair/reversal of aging (we wait that), that's what we want to know the advancements. I remember he has said (and I was alarmed/lost hope by this) that now his target was more along 'healthy aging' and promoting health to elders to that they take his senolytics therapies and live longer. But, I mean, that is So Far from the whole LEV talk from early 2000 that he would write in his scientific papers (he Definitely dropped the whole LEV thing and he himself now doubts his own words of the past)... maybe he realized he shot to the moon/'was a moon shot' and would 'pacify' 'over eager/overexpectations' from people thinking this will do rejuvenation (in the proper sense of the term). So as time goes, I fear, that healthy aging is what it will amount to. And, it's sad because aging can 100% be reversed but I sort of feel a 'just too hard/too costly/too long...to do' among the waht they say; it is in line with the predictions of taking 30-50 years to obtain true biorejuvenation/reversal of aging (and thus death; but not extrinsic caused death like accidents which there is no solution except live as hermit or live a cage/bunker/prison, kind of like covid forcing you to stay inside, because outside you risk your life).

PS: For now, I think BioViva's telomerase therapy or some other telomere reconstituter/protector to maintain them and dramatically slow our loss rate is what we work on; because that has been proven to slow aging (just like CR has been proven too to extend lifespan; the problem is many 'out there' new therapies in the making are not proven and could nothing whatsoever in terms of aging/longevity; they might incraese avg. health span; but not much on the maximum specie lifespan; the only ones that do that are CR, telomeric changes, ROS control; besides that not much else; maybe stem cells are the last hope; stem cells lose their telomeres too (that's the problem; everything ages; I think the 2-3 possible other ones are mitochondrial allotopic gene/protein expression, lipofuscin removal/glucosepan fix (liposfuscin has lots of potential it was found that it produce Fe-Iron fenton reactionROS contributes to ROSburden and; otherwise there epigenetic reprogramming but I have now more doubts of it; because epigenetic clock is more a simple tab-counter signature; the True controller of longevity is the telomere on the chromosome; epigenetic reversal/reprograam of iPSCs elongates their telomeres (telomerase/ZSCAN4 gene were activated and allowed to rebuild telomeres in full and return epiage to 0); but there was another study where there was epireprogramming and No telomere elongation; That, is not proper epireprogramming, only partial/less-programming; If AdG cannot repair damages in nucleus I don't see how we can defeat aging; nuclear changes must happen to reverse/slow aging because that is where 'the limit' is (mitochondrial compartment is another limiter/a large contributory source - but it is the chromosomal telomere DNA end termini domain that is limiter of cell cycling/thus animal lifespan (both average and max))).

Posted by: CANanonymity at May 22nd, 2020 2:07 AM

Maybe this issue is unique to me. But there seems to be a lack of semi sophisticated presentation in this arena. On one hand there is an abundance of redundant pedestrian discussion on why we need anti aging research and why it is not crazy. On the other hand there are highly specialized discussions of research work that quickly advances to PhD level biochemistry that losses me. I would like to see moe presentation in between those two extremes. One idea is a brief organized summary of what various companies are working on to counter the 7/9 root causes of aging.

Posted by: JohnD at May 22nd, 2020 10:24 AM

@JohnD
in a world where antivaxers are a thing, apparently we will have the discussion on why we need to fight aging long after the therapies are widely used :) And this site (FA) is in fact a very valuable resource because Reason does good integration of all the various news sources with correct level of dumbing down the research results to make it more comprehensible.

Posted by: cuberat at May 22nd, 2020 10:35 AM

@CANanonymity
Aubrey with a revolutionary concept. He mentioned that his initial train of thought was that by 2100s we will able to repair all the aspects of the human body and by extension reverse aging. Then he started looking how could we get to there. In theory, it can come in one big bang advancement of self-replicating nanobots which can fix any tissue and all the cells in the body. With large enough information storage you could take a snapshot of your current body, and restore it using nanobots. Except that you would roll-back all your memories too.

If you start from the other end , we see that our life expectancy increases over time. So from purely statistical point of view the one can derive the concept of LEV (AEC at the time) . If we add more than 12 months each year to the life expectancy.

I guess at that point Aubrey did his estimate that he has a real chance to make it to LEV, especially if he pushes the scales and helps accelerate the progress in this area. Now it could like Jules Vern and Tsiolkovsky (and probably other authors) envisioned the theoretical possibility of space flight and even satellites. AuDg has done pretty good job at popluarizing the concept . That probably is the most important part anyway. The inception of this idea in the moinds of the new researchers and future policy makers. SENS org does some interesting research and some of the ideas are long ahead of time if not outright alien.

Now did he got out of favor and de-emphasized in the boards of different companies, well that would be unfortunate but he already delivered a lot of benefits. I personally think that it is more about avoiding conflict of interest, which might suggest that there are commercially viable products in the pipeline.

Don't forget that all I said is just an uninformed opinion :)

Posted by: cuberat at May 22nd, 2020 1:44 PM

Hi cuberat! Thanks for that. Just a 2 cents.

Don't mean to sound pessimistic, 2100 is not close-close. We have to be real here, 99% of people alive, now, are gone in 2100. Only people who 'start' doing something about it will get to reach that. Currently, people above 50, may not reach that late point. 50 years is a long time (well, I mean in 'normal' human lifespan...but no it's microscropic in the grand scheme of things...but 50 years is still 50 years of waiting). The fear I have is that we can't repair damage Enough or reverse it all enough to matter enough; i.e. when you look at CR...it says it all CR is capable of slowing aging but you still die on it withint MLSP; CR works Earlier..not Later....I mean unless we can reverse All the cells of the centenarian people; because you and me will be centenarians by then (2100) or...I'm afraid we may be gone by then, then it's going be very hard to repair all these damages and correctly reverse teheir clocks too; I'm not saying it's unfeasable we see that they reverse centenarians cells back to embryonic ones....that's not the point, it's will they be able to reverse it ALL in that body and make that person '20 again'....that is far harder to believe. Thus, it means that there is Far more likeliness/chance that you are 'time bound'...in a sense that to Obtain Benefit of Longevity - it Must have been Started Earlier (in life)...Not later in life. Many studies/interventions (like CR) have a more 'soft' effect...the Later it is...so the old animals Always have a lesser effect...becayse they are older/more damage and the intervention effect is lesser - because way too much damage/way too late....

so it's the 'too little too late'....scientists seems to forget all that time - they get older too and that's a problem. Many of the scientist do their 'own found' interventions on themselves to slow their Own aging...which is important/understandable since they need to 'be there - then' too, to stick around. But you can clearly 99% of them are aging, very much so. So what says they will still be around by then?

IT's a very egg and chicken question, which ones comes first....can scientist be still around...to use own new intervention (when found by then)..or too late and gone because aging/has aged 'in the mean time'. Rejuvenation is all about reverseing the whole thing...but will that be possible, in a very aged body (that is 'starting late doing this therapy', that is the big .dot -question ?

After seeing repeatedlt in studies that the animals 90% benefited when the therapy was started 'at earliest', not 'at latest'....so it is a time problem.
we run out of time, but we can't run out of time or else we're gone.

Just a 2 cents.

PS: I agree with you that AdG had done a great job of bringing the anti-aging field to the mass and has helped immensely 'get people to care' about it...cause there is still an immense body of people who can't give 2 sh...about it and think aging is graceful/natural/ethical and must be embraced...while genetic/anti-aging endeavors are against god/wrong/unnatural/Artificial...against humane/humanity...(such bs mostly, all ethics again)....
I don't want to battle the people in the comment sections of big newspapers when they release new news about a new 'anti-aging therapy'...read the comments and weep - people are like 'NOPE...Not - Next Thing we will se Flying Pigs - Laughable with their 'antiaging; this Aubrey dude is snake oil peddler that needs a shave/beard cut and looks like a Templar Cult chief (charlatan)''...

it'S normal it's that 'yeah right feeling'...this sort of being scared of what we don't understand and rejecting it outright/and being deceived in the past with snake oil/charlatanism (in the past this was Very present with companies trying to sell you Anything to 'make you not age' from vaseline to bubble gum to magic soap to anything in between)...people are starting to understand better but still think 'genetic tinkering' like a madlab scientist in his rat lab is unnatural and 'Crazy/cray-cray', so why would anyone believe/think/support anything these biogerontology scientists are doing; they do not want to be duped and top of that they 'want to die' 'of age' around 90-120....like it's a gift or something. H. G. Wells said something along the line of : ''*mmortality...if it happened I'd be bored out/don't know what to do 'with myself cause too much time on my 'eternal' hands'''....this thinking is old as old..like ''I need to die one day to let my kids replace me/I would never work forever/I want to retire and if I live forever then I'm useless/I 'can't live with myself - I need to end/die because I'm bored out/useless/somebody replace me quick''.

*face palm* (sigh).

Life is single biggest gift, but for some this gift should never last too long, because too long, is too long for them. They prefer autotermination after a 'long enough time'. As I said before *mmortal life could be handed on a silver gold platter tomorrow gratuit, it would be spat on (still).

PPS: In the future, I feat we may have wars of people 'who want to decide for others' about their lifespan...like if 9 persons out of 10 say : ''I want to age gracefully and die at 122...''...then, that 1 minority out of 10 who say : ''Hell no. I want to live, however long - I - choose''...will be 'forced' to fight against that majority and, generally, that always turns bad for the minority. Because, minority; rarely 'take over' a majority...they die in process if they do. We are not the 100 'Spartans' who destroyed 1000s Persians....it is war that is nearly impossible to win..only through words/convincing them that their life actually matters 'to last longer' than a century or so.
But, so far, it does not work, people want to continue the cycle of rinse-repeat die-by-replaced..they say 'overpopulation on earth' and resource drought/pollution (all ethics again)...never realizing that we Can make solutions/find solutions and we Will...but that is not something they are ready to accept/want; in other words, the humane/stubborness of seeing aging as natural etc...(it's old as old...humanity's 'old thinking' of 'we die'...is sadly not overcome in collective mind of majority because it's been so since its inception; so thinking we would Ever cure aging/death is preposterous and 'against humanity/the normal process' (- which is, bs btw)).

Posted by: CANanonymity at May 22nd, 2020 2:31 PM

Aubrey thinks LEV is possible in 17/18 years, so why are you talking about 50 years or more. Aubrey de Grey knows more about this than any of us here and I believe him, I am not worried at all. Every day we are getting closer to a cure.

Posted by: basinc at May 22nd, 2020 7:49 PM

Yes, there are many that are working tools getting us to LEV within a few decades. Among the tools (offhand) are senlytics, AI, robots, nano, and many others. Additional if knowledge is increasing exponentially, LEV should be a no brainer. Even (as Reason has stated in the past) getting into the rejuvenate field is getting cheaper. I think the biggest problem (besides funding) is the regulatory system, and maybe the general public believing LEV is within our grasps.

Posted by: Robert at May 22nd, 2020 8:07 PM

Hi basinc! Thanks for that. Just a 2 cents.

Well, I meant 30-50 years was something long but more reachable... Absolutely he knows this better than all of us; it's good you're not worried at all. It is better to not be. It's just my sentiments of the whole progression over time; he was speaking of LEV 20 years ago...it could take 18 years or 30 or 50. It's true that there are many different new ventures happening at the same time so that is very great Outlook; but if one were to say that there was not ventures in the 2010s...is a big exaggeration. I.e. in 2010s there many Things (already) tried and we are nowhere near LEV that's the point I'm getting at; it is a sort 'pseudo acceleration feeling' of the biogerontology; you see lots of stuff popping but not much 'becoming' (like therapies 'happening') ok they have to be built that is the longest part; I forgotten but I think AdG had said a while ago that some therapies tok 5 years to make some would take 10-20 years...thus, all this leads me tot he conservative answer of 30 years time to 'do it all'...not just one or 2 therapies. I would hope that in 17 years, all the therapies are done - in that time! for sure. People should always add an extra 10-15 years On Top of the finding..because these findings need to be Marketed/become 'available' to the mass public 'as affordable' to do them/obtain them; that mean the whole bureaucratic red tape (FDA/Health bodies that will approve only after trials - trials are long...etc). Some of the therapies cost 10-50,000$, how exactly are people going to cope with this when the majority have enough difficulty 'making ends meet and affording a few anti-aging off-the-shelf supplements'. I hope that accessibility/ availability/service costs are not what makes things take an eternity to become.

Just a 2 cents.

Hi Robert! Just a2 cents. a few decades is about right/I feel is reasonable/realistic about this (and yes some inventions have been found 'from one day to the next'..so maybe in 5 years or next year or in 14 years...suddenly it 'snowballs' up...but let's tamper overexpectations (be realist) while remaining positive that it will happen at some point. I just think there needs to be talk of what exactly they are doing to solve aging; we must repair the body/DNA damages....they need to explain how they are doing so and then we can extrapolate/conjecture. Otherwise, it may endup 'overpromising' (I hope not) and, sadly, 'undelivering' (again, really hope not). A part of reaaching 'Loftier goals' (aiming for the moon) is at least making sure progress is Really happening and it is not délusions/'honey moon phase', because once it is over you see how far the moon is (still).
Just 2 cents.

Posted by: CANanonymity at May 22nd, 2020 9:02 PM

@CANanonymity

I was just trying to reconstruct how Aubrey would have come to the conclusion of LEV and SENS foundation. There are some groups that discuss terraforming Mars or interstellar flights. Now we are like them. Nothing impossible ,theoretically speaking but with huge practical difficulties that require a lot of scientific and engineering advances , coupled with generous funding.

It is so remote from the mainstream attention that is at best considered as a cool concept if not rejected outright.
The year 2100 was an arbitrary line in the sand, where all the difficulties world have been long surmounted. Of course that's just a guesstimate. At the current rate of aging and lover expectancy I have vanishingly small chances to make it by then. I am 44, my parents are still alive, albeit with poor health. I can come in 30 to 40 more years with periodic fasting and modest medical advances. By 2100 I would be a super centarian, even beating current confirmed maximum human lifespan. So without profound breakouts I have no chances. Not even 1 in 7 billion , as we have nobody that old alive today. Of course, even making it to 2050 might be enough. We are now at this peculiar point of human history where a few decades septate ageless from ephemeral humanity.

So from a practical point of view the first age reversal or even solid slowdown will be a big thing. Senolytics are a very good candidate for mainstream attention and funding. They help a lot but don't really reverse the aging. Just compensate for one underlying process with a lot of down pathologies. (Like fixing blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels, which if left uncontrollable will bring a lot of damage ). So Senolytics (my autocorrect insists on capitalization and this exact spelling) will help with the health span and attract funding but will not raise themselves alone the controversial questions about living forever, overpopulation, eternal pensions and such.

I was hoping for a faster introduction to the medical practice. Probably phase ii studies by now. Apparently, those wheels grind very slowly. The good news is that we have many slow wheels, so in a few years there will be multiple candidate SENS treatments popping seemingly out of nowhere. There is a bunch of promising developments but still nothing solid and confirmed by per review to work in humans. We already see experiments on the second generation of Senolytics. The Yamanaka factors are used in lands left and right, yet only in highly experimental medical treatments. Just a few weeks ago there read a Chinese study suggesting that mitochondria can go cells and probably do it constantly. That would mean, if confirmed, that e can have mitochondrial transplants just by simpke injection.

Alas, all the exciting treatments are at least a few years away. Might be too late for my parents. I have some chance and my kids most likely will benefit directly.
We might be lucky and find a few low hanging fruits like the antibiotics were a lucky find in three forties. Or if we are really unlucky if might turn that stopping /reversing aging to be extremely hard, like nuclear fusion reactors. At least with biology a small sorry can make a big discovery.
Sorry for the long and ranty post

Posted by: Cuberat at May 22nd, 2020 9:56 PM

@JohnD: Yep, there is a lack of intermediate level information in video, but there is in text, I think, like this blog. There used to be a good scientific blog at sens.org by Michael Rae (albeith not very frequently updated), but it seems to have gone after the last update of the web.

Posted by: Antonio at May 23rd, 2020 5:07 AM
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