For anyone who was interested in the piece I wrote a few weeks ago querying the timetable for potential therapies that might radically extend human lifespan, Dr Aubrey de Grey has left a reply :
"This is Dr. de Grey. Thanks to you both. All I would offer in my defence is that I do in fact insert "subject to funding" into my replies to questions on timeframes much more often than is apparent, but journalists just leave it out (rather as they insist on describing my goals as "immortality" and so on). My view is that progress in the past seven years or so since I started making these timeframe predictions probably amounts to about two years of the progress I think we would have made with full funding, so it's not as bad as all that."
I back Dr de Grey 100%. Clearly funding and by that I mean significant government funding is vital to get things moving forward in order that we can bring aging under control within 25 years or less. There are various routes being pursued that will eventually achieve the goal of radical life extension. Personally I am very confident that the SENS project will come to fruition and that Aubrey de Grey is very much on the right track. The compelling piece of proof to support Aubrey’s theory is that our risk of dying doubles every 8 years although there is some argument as to whether this is every 7, 8 or 9 years, regardless lets call it 8 and take as an example the fact that your risk of death within a year at age 14 is 1 in 2000 but it increases exponentially so that at 22 it is double what it was at 14 and at 30 double what it was at 22. This doubling every eight years does not become a major problem until you reach early middle age because it starts off at such a low level but the rate of increase is exponential as opposed to linear so it accelerates rapidly with increasing age. What is abundantly clear is that the only likely cause for this increasing risk of mortality is the accumulation of junk in the body and the genetic damage to our DNA which builds up over time. Aubrey's theory that if we intervened and removed some of the damage we would make a person biologically younger certainly makes sense. In my view Aubrey's role is vital in this area because he is the catalyst that is driving things forward and encouraging people in unrelated fields to work together. I cover quite a lot of areas regarding Aubrey de Grey and other people and organisations involved in combating aging on one of my websites at http://drjohnty.com/ In ending I have to say that the thing that never fails to amaze me is Aubrey's focus and determination to succeed. Personally I feel that if anyone can pull scientists together from all these different areas of research and end up saving 100,000 lives per day it is Dr Aubrey de Grey. You can check out the latest information at http://www.sens.org/ and keep in mind anyone can make a financial contribution to the aims of the SENS foundation.
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