The Goal Must be to Cure Aging
A cure for aging, as presently envisaged, would be a matter of bringing aging under medical control. Not stopping its progression, but rather periodically repairing the damage that accumulates in tissues as a result of the normal operation of metabolism. Present goals in the longevity industry are largely unambitious, aimed at a very modest improvement over the present situation via adjustment of metabolism, such as via mimicking some of the effects of calorie restriction. Thus more advocacy for the better end goal is necessary. More persuasion! There are approaches that can repair the molecular damage of aging, such as senolytic therapies to remove senescent cells, and other less well developed line items from the SENS program for rejuvenation therapies. Advancing the state of the art in this part of the field should be the priority.
The ultimate goal should be to "cure aging" - a phrase that many in the field are uncomfortable with. "What I mean by curing aging is having a risk of death that doesn't vary depending on how long ago you were born. A lot of scientists, even aging biologists, get a little bit squeamish when you say that. But I really do think that should be the fundamental aim of all medicine."
Using cancer as an example, most scientists working in that field would agree they are working towards an end goal of curing cancer. "I don't see why aging should be any different. At least the aspects of aging that cause frailty and discomfort and distress and pain and disease and all these horrible things we want to get rid of. I don't see why our goal shouldn't be to minimise that human suffering as far as possible. And to me, that means curing aging."
"How possible is that going to be? I'm absolutely convinced it's possible at some point. There's no law of biology that tells us we must age - we can look around the animal kingdom and see animals that don't age, they're negligibly senescent, they have exactly this risk of death that doesn't vary depending on how long ago they were born. The real question is, are we clever enough? Is our biotechnology advanced enough? And are we going to get lucky enough that it's going to happen in our generation?"
Link: https://www.longevity.technology/andrew-steele-our-goal-must-be-to-cure-aging/