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Science & Technology

Is it possible to live to the age of 1,000 ?

By T.K. Randall
April 15, 2015 · Comment icon 70 comments

How far can science take us towards immortality ? Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Steven Depolo
Gerontologist Aubrey de Grey believes that the first person to live to 1,000 is already alive today.
Mankind has been obsessed with maintaining youthfulness since the dawn of civilization, but it wasn't until the advent of modern science that the quest for immortality could truly begin.

Aubrey de Grey, co-founder of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) Research Foundation, believes that not only will it be possible for humans to live for centuries but that the techniques needed to accomplish practically limitless longevity will be available within as little as 30 years.

"If we ask the question: ‘Has the person been born who will be able to escape the ill health of old age indefinitely?' Then I would say the chances of that are very high," he said. "Probably about 80%."

To achieve this de Gray has been developing a new type of therapy that can kill cells that are no longer able to divide so that healthy cells can multiply and replenish the tissue.
"These therapies are going to be good enough to take middle age people, say people aged 60, and rejuvenate them thoroughly enough so they won't be biologically 60 again until they are chronologically 90," he said.

The same techniques could then be adapted to afford the same benefit to a person aged 90 and so on until eventually they could be kept alive almost indefinitely.

The gerontologist maintains that the first major step will be to demonstrate the process in action by successfully rejuvenating a middle age mouse in a laboratory.

"Once we can do it for mice, people are going to know that it's only a matter of time before we can do it for human beings," he said. "So that's where I want to get to and I think we have a fair chance of getting there in six to eight years from now."

Source: News.com.au | Comments (70)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #61 Posted by free10 9 years ago
Why should you get to decide what the limit should be? We will see what he has to say, as he is dragged kicking and screaming to the roaring fire of the burning stake, in less than 100 years in public celebrations of all young people who just turned 120. Maybe like Logan's Run. Knowing all chindren will meet the same fate. I would recommend anyone who thinks we are overpopulated take a small plane and fly everywhere, at 5000 feet or less across this country, so they can grasp the vastness and emptiness we live in. We build tiny little ant mounds to reside in called towns and cities, and then t... [More]
Comment icon #62 Posted by Calibeliever 9 years ago
We will see what he has to say, as he is dragged kicking and screaming to the roaring fire of the burning stake, in less than 100 years in public celebrations of all young people who just turned 120. Maybe like Logan's Run. Knowing all chindren will meet the same fate. I would recommend anyone who thinks we are overpopulated take a small plane and fly everywhere, at 5000 feet or less across this country, so they can grasp the vastness and emptiness we live in. We build tiny little ant mounds to reside in called towns and cities, and then talk about how crowded or overpopulated it is. To put th... [More]
Comment icon #63 Posted by free10 9 years ago
Open land and habitable land are not the same thing though. We aren't advanced enough to convert all land into something humans can comfortably live on. We're running that experiment in California but it isn't going too well just now .... The term out here, for where I live is "no mans land" Or as the song says We talk about living on the Moon, or Mars, or deep in the oceans, or on them. It all in where we chose to live. Choosing California when there are a whole world of options is by choice. We can inhabit just about anywhere with out technologies and do, and the tech is really about to get ... [More]
Comment icon #64 Posted by qxcontinuum 9 years ago
if you can just stop the oddity of cells self destruct...
Comment icon #65 Posted by DieChecker 9 years ago
if you can just stop the oddity of cells self destruct... I've read that they are working on that. Cells age because the ends of the DNA end up falling off over time as the cells replicate and divide. The idea that is being worked on is to "cap" the DNA so that the degradation doesn't occur, and at that point your cells become immortal, and you only die by violence or disease, not from degeneration.
Comment icon #66 Posted by free10 9 years ago
I've read that they are working on that. Cells age because the ends of the DNA end up falling off over time as the cells replicate and divide. The idea that is being worked on is to "cap" the DNA so that the degradation doesn't occur, and at that point your cells become immortal, and you only die by violence or disease, not from degeneration. The ends or tips are called telomeres, and they used to be called junk DNA and were thought to have no purpose. Then they thought they were only caps, like on shoe laces with the same function of keeping them from unraveling and getting frayed. But to me ... [More]
Comment icon #67 Posted by free10 9 years ago
Just out on why we age they think. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/apr/30/aging-belmonte-zhang/
Comment icon #68 Posted by Erowin 9 years ago
I know I'm a huge optimist, but I think this is just the way humanity is going to naturally go. It's how we have always been going. Life spans have been constantly getting longer. There was a time when 40 was old- now, we see that as barely having lived half your life. Thinking back to the days when you died at 35 seem awful and barbaric, because we live to 70 and 80 now. No one wants to go back to that, and I think that's how it will always be when life spans continue extending. We'll get used to the new life span and the old one will seem awful. There will be a new normal. Granted, things ar... [More]
Comment icon #69 Posted by Dark_Grey 9 years ago
Since breakthrough medical technologies are usually very expensive, only the wealthy can afford them. What we could be looking at is a class of corrupt politicians and corporate devils staying in power for hundreds of years...yay!
Comment icon #70 Posted by free10 9 years ago
Since breakthrough medical technologies are usually very expensive, only the wealthy can afford them. What we could be looking at is a class of corrupt politicians and corporate devils staying in power for hundreds of years...yay! In my view the system in the part of the world we in the west see is corrupt, and designed for profit, and that profit is death and diseases never ending. It is also a form of profitable cult religion. We have something similar we call governments. But not all fall for those games nor are they going to go along. We are quickly entering an era of freedom, as the techn... [More]


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