Fight Aging!

The latest issue of h+ magazine is online, though you'll have to view it via a flash reader or as a PDF. The website itself puts out less ornately formatted articles on an ongoing basis as well. In tone and look, h+ magazine is somewhat like a merging of the old, adventurous iterations of Wired, transhumanist discussion lists, and the present Life Extension Magazine - it knows its demographic, for better or worse.

One of the articles in this issue looks briefly at the work of Genescient in the context of manipulating metabolism and genes to slow aging.

As the Boomers begin to go gray and fragile, those with way high expectations confront an uncomfortable fact - nobody has done much about aging, throughout their lifetimes ... and they get angry. How could this be?! Technology has carried us along on its broad back, giving us computers, conveniences, Internet and media wonders. But aches and pains foretell much bad news ahead. We can do better, but to do it we’ll have to reinvent biology.

This is as good a distillation as you'll see of the spirit that drives the more active members of the pro-longevity mainstream of biogerontology. They work to build a better human metabolism, one small piece at a time: a biochemistry of life that will do less damage, and thus last longer. As usual, I should remind you that this vision looks like the slow and hard road from where I stand. There is an alternative: don't rework this incredibly complex system, but rather learn to reverse the fundamental forms of change and damage that cause it to fail. Build a better metabolism and it'll still fail in time. Learn to repair and restore the metabolism we have, and it'll last as long as you care to keep working on it.

You should also look at the interview with Peter Diamandis of the X Prize Foundation. Research prizes are a very effective methology of stimulating progress in areas where results seem to be lacking, and Diamandis is an advisor to the Methuselah Foundation's Mprize efforts. On the subject of longevity, Diamandis has this to say:

I believe that in the next few decades, we will unlock the secrets of human aging and we’ll be able to slow down, stop, and ultimately reverse aging. And that not an if, it’s a when.

Meanwhile, you'll find a piece on the march towards molecular manufacturing at the h+ magazine website. This is a topic very much of interest to those of us who advocate longevity research, since a mature molecular manufacturing technology base will enable a range of powerful biotechnologies:

This manufacturing technology would build macroscale products atom-by-atom using bottom-up assembly, in contrast to the top-down assembly that represents almost all present-day manufacturing. Or imagine targeted anti-aging therapy and drug delivery. Nanoscale machines in the bloodstream can be used to target and repair cancer cells and other pathologies. Rob Frietas has written extensively on the medical applications of molecular nanotechnology and medical nanorobotics.

All our problems of aging ultimately boil down to the wrong atoms and molecules in the wrong place and the wrong time. There is no known obstacle in the laws of physics that prevents us from developing and deploying billions of machines smaller than our cells to keep everything shipshape. In effect, stem cell therapies are our first stumbling steps in that direction, using the prefabricated machines we happen to have lying around and just barely understand. But we'll become much more adept in the years ahead.