Live Forever

Aubrey de Grey may be wrong but, evidence suggests, he’s not nuts. This is a no small assertion. De Grey argues that some people alive today will live in a robust and youthful fashion for 1,000 years. – The Invicible Man, Washington Post

Visionary or snake-oil salesman? You’re going to have to decide for yourself. Check out De Grey’s entries on Wikipedia, as well as these stories:

Hang in There: The 25-Year Wait for Immortality
Blogterview with Aubrey de Grey: Life Extension Stories
‘We will be able to live to 1,000′ — BBC News
Aubrey de Grey is helping humans live forever… — Slate
Interview – Machines like Us

Then there’s de Grey’s talk at the 2005 TED conference:

On the surface at least, the argument is an exciting one. Products of metabolism accumulate in our bodies, wearing them down over time. If we could eliminate these waste products, we should be able to reverse much if not all of the damage.

Aging consists of seven critical kinds of damage, according to de Grey. For example, unwholesome goo accumulates in our cells. Our bodies have not evolved means quickly to clean up “intracellular aggregates such as lipofuscin.” However, outside our bodies, microorganisms have eagerly and rapidly evolved to turn this toxic waste into compost. (De Grey made this connection because he knew two things: Lipofuscin is fluorescent and graveyards don’t glow in the dark.)

By taking soil samples from an ancient mass grave, de Grey’s colleagues in short order found the bacteria that digest lipofuscin as easily as enzymes in our stomachs digest a steak. The trick now is getting those lipofuscin-digesting enzymes into our bodies. That has not yet been done. But, de Grey says, comparable fundamental biotechnology is already in clinical use fighting diseases such as Tay-Sachs. So he sees it as merely an engineering problem.
(Excerpt – WaPo)

Where de Grey breaks with convention is that he predicts we’re on the precipice of making this happen. We only need to make the research a priority.

Like Kurzeil’s postulated “Singularity“, this is an enticing thought. It’s one of those things that you want to believe, even if you really don’t.