Fight Aging!

Some mainstream media attention for the work of the SENS Foundation: "Rather than simply slowing ageing down, which is what most people have been focused on, we are interested in reversing ageing. So taking people who are already in middle age or older and [getting them back to] the same state of health as a young adult. ... [SENS Foundation co-founder Aubrey de Grey was in Dublin] to talk about how he thinks science will achieve that. ... So how do you reverse ageing? The basis of de Grey's argument is that our metabolism, that complex biochemical orchestra that keeps our bodies running, has side effects that cause damage in the long term. ... The big insight that governs our work is that we can classify these many different types of damage into just seven major categories. And within each category, there is a particular approach that seems promising to not simply slow it down but repair the damage, so we have less of it than we had before the therapy was started. ... The research is at a basic stage, and therapies for use on humans are decades away, according to de Grey. He considers the theme that looks to tackle junk that accumulates between cells to be the most advanced. That's an area being looked at by Dr Brian O'Nuallain, who has just left University College Dublin for Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is starting work on a Sens-funded project into an age-associated condition called senile systemic amyloidosis. One aim is to develop an antibody that will pick up when a protein called transthyretin clumps abnormally in heart tissue, which can lead to organ failure. Being able to diagnose this early would maximise the beneficial effects of future therapies for the incurable condition,"

Link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0525/1224297699236.html