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."
Doesn't this guy watch movies? We are gonna have a bunch of Cujo's running around.
That live forever. Exactly what we need.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
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".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (Not a rickroll, I swear)
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Other research has shown that giving old mice blood transfusions from young ones can restore some biomarkers to youthful levels.
What could possibly go wrong?
I don't want to live forever (and that's impossible anyways, entropy always wins)... but I wouldn't mind a solid chance of living until *I* decide I don't want to live any longer rather than being slowly crippled by age until my body gives up on me.
I'd love to live to 130 in the body of a 22 year old, but I think she'd be doing most of the work towards the end...
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The human treatment will cost hundreds of thousands...millions?
The billionaires will live to 130 with great health and the rest of us plebes? Sorry, insurance doesn't cover cosmetic treatments.
In the developing world sure, but within a few years of it being established everyone will get some form of the treatment in the west.
The rich control a lot for certain, but the GOP showdown was a battle between Trump and Cruz, the two people most hated by the elites in the GOP. And Trump actually became President.
You think you Trump ran an effective populist campaign? Just wait for "Vote for me or you will literally die (of old age)".
I don't think that would be a particularly close election.
I stole this Sig
Please tell me this is more than just lengthening telomeres, that's more of a symptom of aging than the cause of it. (Yeah, there's diseases related to it, again, symptoms of aging rather than the cause).
Not discussing whether it is even scientifically feasible, I abhor the idea that people will live "forever" in a youthful human body. Because the last thing that this world needs is the ability for the rich and powerful to live even longer, like some real life vampires that will literally prey on the rest of humanity. Before they solve aging, they better work on improving humanity itself, because biologically we are all selfish monkeys due to our genetics.
Elizabeth, is that you?
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.
You forgot the irony tag.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I like most dogs more than I like most people.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Hurry up, dammit!
I'm old enough to remember when Star Trek and Brady Bunch were first shown...in reruns on my local channel in the 1970s.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You're making assumptions about which approaches will work. OTOH, you're right in that life will eventually lead to cancer unless something else kills it first.
I'll grant that the summary sounded like he might be lengthening the teleomeres, but that wasn't really clear. IIRC, it's also been shown that as a simple approach it won't work. The teleomeres are just one marker, and some cell lines don't use them anyway. (E.g., I believe that epidermal cell lines don't use shortened teleomeres to decide not to grow. They depend more no neighbor sensing. But it could be that the study I'm remembering was talking about the cells lining the intestines.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
FTS:
"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'm not going to claim that all regulation is bad, but there is a common theme out there that regulation is NEVER bad. This sentence can be read to say that they could alleviate pain and suffering faster, but the FDA is in the way.
From my own experience, I've seen the same thing with the FAA in my non-professional life. Just about anything that can be considered innovative in the GA aviation market occurs in Experimental Aviation. It is just too hard to get anything through the FAA blockade.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The stealth startup
I assume "stealth startup" is code for "we haven't got any money to spend on advertising."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I am 55.... I don't want to be the last human to die.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
"I Can't Look!" Gesture
Voice of God internal monologue
(Just for the record, Don LaFontaine always left me writhing in my seat.)
If I were into this kind of thing, I might upload a certain iconic scene from Clockwork Orange with Beethoven's symphony replaced by a gravely Don LaFontaine voice-over narration: in a world ruled by mediocrity, one man dares ...
No, wait, I'm conflating Amadeus with Dr Ludovico Faustus.
alt.fido.die.die.die
I get it,
I really do.
The "human anti-aging" is just a smokescreen.
The Real Reason for this is all too apparent. SMBC explains it all.
Eventually, you breed out all those willing and/or able to control their reproduction. (See Niven & Pournelle's Moties, who can't restrict their reproduction by much; they die unpleasantly if they don't have a baby every so often.)
Your fear need not limit other people's opportunity. Die if you want to but I for one have a lot of projects to do. Another thousand years might let me make a dent in my current list. Longer life means accumulating more wisdom and knowledge.
George Church is undermining scientific integrity by legitimizing questionable start-ups just so they can attract billion or two of investments with no intent to deliver.
Yes, the elites seem to be hating Trump with a passion. Yes indeed. All the way to the bank.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
... at the regular age. Hence he promises something he cannot deliver on but which is something the people who are extremely afraid of death (pathetic wimps, the lot of them) wand desperately enough to not look closely. That will probably make him rich but will not extend his life or improve the condition of his body.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And with excellent results !
It is really sad to see your parents slowly turn into vegetables -- and the doctors try to tell you there is nothing your can do, or they give expensive pills that are
barely better than placebo. BS !
Nootropics might be the new cool thing with programmers, but they are MUCH better at bringing declining minds back to normal than they are at turning average people into geniuses.
The problem is -- in the US -- doctors are NOT ALLOWED to talk about anything that isn't FDA approved (just ask your doctor).
I've been giving my 80 and 90 year old parents (and now in-laws) a stack of phenylpiracetam, Alpha-GPC, DHA fish oil, etc for over a year now.
The results are quite amazing to everyone who knows them.
Now, I have started to test age-reversal supplements.
I always guinea-pig myself first -- mostly to learn what to expect.
It is good that my genetics are close, because there are genetic factors.
It is also good that I know my parents -- they trust me and I know when to take their complaints seriously.
Everyone should know that the proper order of things is that cats come before dogs! I would accept an argument that they want to test the process out on dogs first since they're more expendable, but i will not abide them skipping over cats entirely!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
If you want to live forever, you have to go to church... Either "the church" or "George Church". How fucking ironic...
The US health care system seems to be doing a pretty good job of preventing that so far, as congress hasn't done much to make life-saving treatments cheaper.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The US health care system seems to be doing a pretty good job of preventing that so far, as congress hasn't done much to make life-saving treatments cheaper.
Politically, there's a big difference between: "Poor people sometimes die of preventable causes" and "Everyone but the rich dies of this preventable cause".
I stole this Sig