Slashdot Mirror
A Stealthy Harvard Startup Wants To Reverse Aging in Dogs, and Humans Could Be Next (technologyreview.com)
The idea is simple, if you ask biologist George Church. He wants to live to 130 in the body of a 22-year-old. From a report: The world's most influential synthetic biologist is behind a new company that plans to rejuvenate dogs using gene therapy. If it works, he plans to try the same approach in people, and he might be one of the first volunteers. The stealth startup Rejuvenate Bio, cofounded by George Church of Harvard Medical School, thinks dogs aren't just man's best friend but also the best way to bring age-defeating treatments to market. The company, which has carried out preliminary tests on beagles, claims it will make animals "younger" by adding new DNA instructions to their bodies.
Its age-reversal plans build on tantalizing clues seen in simple organisms like worms and flies. Tweaking their genes can increase their life spans by double or better. Other research has shown that giving old mice blood transfusions from young ones can restore some biomarkers to youthful levels. "We have already done a bunch of trials in mice and we are doing some in dogs, and then we'll move on to humans," Church told the podcaster Rob Reid earlier this year. The company's efforts to keep its activities out of the press make it unclear how many dogs it has treated so far. In a document provided by a West Coast veterinarian, dated last June, Rejuvenate said its gene therapy had been tested on four beagles with Tufts Veterinary School in Boston. It is unclear whether wider tests are under way.
However, from public documents, a patent application filed by Harvard, interviews with investors and dog breeders, and public comments made by the founders, MIT Technology Review assembled a portrait of a life-extension startup pursuing a longevity long shot through the $72-billion-a-year US pet industry. "Dogs are a market in and of themselves," Church said during an event in Boston last week. "It's not just a big organism close to humans. It's something people will pay for, and the FDA process is much faster. We'll do dog trials, and that'll be a product, and that'll pay for scaling up in human trials."
Its age-reversal plans build on tantalizing clues seen in simple organisms like worms and flies. Tweaking their genes can increase their life spans by double or better. Other research has shown that giving old mice blood transfusions from young ones can restore some biomarkers to youthful levels. "We have already done a bunch of trials in mice and we are doing some in dogs, and then we'll move on to humans," Church told the podcaster Rob Reid earlier this year. The company's efforts to keep its activities out of the press make it unclear how many dogs it has treated so far. In a document provided by a West Coast veterinarian, dated last June, Rejuvenate said its gene therapy had been tested on four beagles with Tufts Veterinary School in Boston. It is unclear whether wider tests are under way.
However, from public documents, a patent application filed by Harvard, interviews with investors and dog breeders, and public comments made by the founders, MIT Technology Review assembled a portrait of a life-extension startup pursuing a longevity long shot through the $72-billion-a-year US pet industry. "Dogs are a market in and of themselves," Church said during an event in Boston last week. "It's not just a big organism close to humans. It's something people will pay for, and the FDA process is much faster. We'll do dog trials, and that'll be a product, and that'll pay for scaling up in human trials."
I would love to live an extended life or "forever". I just don't want everyone else to as well. The social and economic stresses it would put on the finite resources of this planet scare me. I think there's a reasonable chance that we'll see this in our lifetimes and it may be things like war that ends up killing people instead of "natural causes".
No, see, it'll be worse than that. It'll be stupid, evil rich people living forever, that we'll have to put up with. Include politicians in that group. Think about this: Vladimir Putin running Russia for the next 100 years (or more). They'll do whatever they can to make sure the treatment is very expensive so only The Rich can afford it -- and as a matter of fact they'll probably buy up all the rights to it and bury it, so only The Few of The Rich can have it, and no one else. Hell, this is the sort of thing that, if it works and is safe, people will be killed over it.
Part of me would like something like this; I'm an athlete now, and I'm in my 50's, and would love it to go back to being in my 20's physically and make the best of my chosen sport. But another part of me wants this to fail, not be real at all, because it could actually be very destructive to our civilization and our species as a whole.
Perhaps it becomes a prime motivator to work once basic income rolls around.
Quite the opposite. Citizens that voted themselves onto permanent welfare will also vote themselves this treatment for free. And free television, and a free couch.
Delusional thinking at it's finest.
No matter how much citizens vote, a Ferrari will never be free. And you can sure as fuck bet that immortality won't be either.
I think that our life spans are meant to be finite and I think if we embrace this understanding, we will lose our fear of death. IMHO, people concerned about living forever are not enjoying their lives presently. I would rather enjoy the life that I have then try to spend life looking for the fountain of youth. As someone who has seen people in various states of death and decline, I would sooner die than experience that pain and suffering. The world is also pretty inhospitable so I am not terribly attached to this life. The world is overpopulated now. Imagine if people started living vastly longer lives. The world's problems would only get worse.
Haven't been to a Bernie rally have you?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba