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Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part Three

Parte 3 of the SENS Research Foundation interview by LEAF is out!

Welcome to part three and the final part of our SENS Undoing Aging 2018 interview; we have a few more scientific questions today for Aubrey and his team as well as questions about future developments and taking new therapies to market.

Dr. de Grey, has your position on the relevance of telomere attrition changed since you first devised SENS, especially in the light of the recent results with fibrosis and your involvement with AgeX?

Aubrey: No. Let’s start with the big picture. Neither I nor anyone sensible has ever suggested that telomere attrition has no functional effects in aging: telomere attrition causes cells to become senescent and runs down the proliferative capacity of stem cells, amongst other things. Nor have I suggested that there wouldn’t be some short-term health benefits to activating telomerase or telomerase gene therapy in aging animals or animal models of age-related disease (or even their human equivalents). Indeed, there was plenty of animal data to support this long before the recent results with a mouse model of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF)[1].

Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part Two

The second part of LEAF’s interview with the SENS Research Foundation team is out!

Welcome to part two of our three-part Undoing Aging 2018 interview of Dr. Aubrey de Grey and his team at SENS Research Foundation. Today, we have some of the scientific questions that the community had about SENS; there are some very detailed responses, and we hope you enjoy them.

Regarding the use of senolytics, are you concerned about their potential to remove highly specialized cells like cardiomyocytes, which do not divide or do so very slowly? Could taking senolytics without the ability to replace these specialized lost cells be risky unless combined with replacement therapies?

Aubrey: This is not a major concern, for a few reasons. First, when cells turn senescent, they cease carrying out their specialized function (as a cardiomyocyte, or neuron, or what have you), so no such function is lost by ablating them. Second, cells that don’t divide (like cardiomyocytes and neurons) are far less likely to become senescent in the first place than cell types that divide; many of the main drivers of senescence are related to cell division. And third, in the specific case of cardiomyocytes, there’s already significant evidence in rodents that it improves cardiac function overall [1] as well as wider cardiovascular health [2–3].

Silicon Valley billionaire pays $10k to be killed and have his brain preserved

A SILICON Valley billionaire is paying the ultimate price for the chance of immortality: death.

Well that, and a spare ten grand.

Entrepreneur Sam Altman is one of 25 people who have splashed the cash to join a waiting list at Nectome – a startup that promises to upload your brain into a computer to grant eternal life to your consciousness.

Mad Scientists Want to 3D Print Every Dead Person Back to Life

This major religious site suggests I’m part of a group of mad scientists, but Quantum Archaeology is a very interesting idea that more people should ponder. The article also highlights the challenge of #transhumanism vs. religion and conservative attitutes: http://www.lifenews.com/2018/03/12/mad-scientists-want-to-3-…k-to-life/ #transhumanism

But the self-described secular transhumanist is perfectly serious in his posturing about the future of technology, life and death. Within 50 years, he believes scientists may be able to bring back people from the dead.

“After all, everything is matter and energy. And human life, human thoughts and human existence are mathematical, determinable calculations of that subatomic world of matter and energy,” Istvan writes.

“As a secular transhumanist—someone who advocates for improving humanity by merging people with machines—I don’t believe in death anymore,” he continues. “Most transhumanists’ number one goal is to become immortal through science.”

Though he does not lump himself into this camp, he says some transhumanists want to bring back every life who ever lived.

Undoing Aging With Aubrey de Grey Part One

The Undoing Aging 2018 Conference is almost here! For the occasion, LEAF has interviewed Dr. Aubrey de Grey and others of the SRF team. Check it out!

As the Undoing Aging 2018 Conference approaches, excitement and interest about the event are growing among both aging scientists and rejuvenation enthusiasts alike. If you’re a regular on our blog, neither Undoing Aging 2018’s main organizer, SENS Research Foundation, nor the main sponsor, Michael Greve’s Forever Healthy Foundation, need much of an introduction, but for the benefit of any newcomers, here’s a brief summary of all you need to know before diving into the questions that we’ve asked the SRF team on behalf of the members of the growing rejuvenation community.

SENS Research Foundation

SENS Research Foundation is a medical research charity based in California and the UK. A spin-off of the Methuselah Foundation, SRF is the engine room of research on biotechnologies against aging. Co-founded by Dr. Aubrey de Grey, the first proponent of the so-called “maintenance approach” to aging, the foundation has, over the years, funded and conducted cutting-edge research on the known root causes of aging, producing solid evidence that rejuvenation biotechnologies that can undo the damage of aging may be achievable within a few decades, given sufficient effort and funding.

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