Immortality and extended youth
Is the mission feasible for scientists?
Rita Makhmudova, RosnaukaThe secrets of eternal youth have been stirring the minds of mankind since ancient times.
Once alchemists, now scientists devote their lives to finding the secrets of longevity.
The popular futurist Ray Kurzweil in his forecasts describes a very optimistic prospect for mankind to gain immortality. In his opinion, in twenty years the secrets of the brain will be deciphered and it will be possible to copy human consciousness in fragments. At the same time, 3D printers will be used everywhere to print and replace organs with younger and more advanced ones. And by 2043 Kurzweil predicts that man will already consist of cybernetic organs with improved properties.
What are the prerequisites for such forecasts and what do scientists think about the prospects for life extension?
AntioxidantsOne of the causes of aging is damage to cells by reactive oxygen species or free radicals.
But nature has also created a mechanism to protect against an excess of free radicals: antioxidant substances are synthesized in cells. The body also receives antioxidants from food. Is it possible to prolong youth by getting more antioxidants?
The Mitotech biological company believes that yes, only if it is special antioxidants directed specifically to the mitochondria. Under the leadership of Vladimir Skulachev, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Director of the A.N. Belozersky Research Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, the substance SkQ1 was synthesized, the effectiveness of which was hundreds of times higher than previous analogues.
"The targeted antioxidant SkQ has some chance to prolong the period of youth and postpone old age. This, of course, should increase the average life expectancy," says Maxim Skulachev, CEO of Mitotech LLC.
Eye drops with antioxidant SkQ1 are already on sale, they cure dry eye syndrome. Recently, the Ministry of Health approved the results of clinical trials of these drops against cataracts.
"As for the systemic drug, we are waiting for permission to start the first clinical trials on volunteers," Maxim Skulachev reports. – They should be held this year. If everything goes well, then this drug with SkQ may appear in pharmacies in two years. This is an oral solution. First of all, it is aimed at combating certain senile diseases. For example, neurodegenerative. Including those that occur when the vessels of the brain are disrupted. At the same time, we really hope that our results obtained on animals will be repeated, and people will feel better, get sick less often. Maybe they will become more beautiful – our mice on the background of SkQ did not lose their hair and did not turn gray in old age. That would be a good result."
Brain emulation is impossibleBrain emulation or the transfer of human consciousness to an electronic medium is one of the favorite topics of science fiction.
Is it possible to copy the contents of the brain, thereby giving it eternal life? Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Head of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Neurocomputer Interfaces Alexander Kaplan believes that the transfer of life experience to an electronic medium is impossible. No matter how smart a car is, it will never be a person.
"The inner world of a person, his psyche and consciousness is not some finite amount of information stored in bytes that can be transferred to any medium, it is an astronomically complex network of interneuronal contacts, each of which can be in one or another of dozens of possible states. The whole experience of a person, his current feelings, emotions and mental procedures are determined by the combinatorics of the states of interneuronal contacts distributed throughout the network. Let it be possible to recreate this hyper-complex network of a particular person's brain on an electronic medium. But how do you know the algorithms by which a million billion interneuronal contacts will need to be switched every moment so that all this electronic stuffing works like a real brain? The natural human brain creates these highly personalized algorithms throughout life, actually on its own experience. Moreover, this is an experience not only of mental operations, but also of body sensations, emotions, communication with other people. Therefore, the task of copying the structure of the human brain in complexity, firstly, is comparable to copying the Universe in the instantaneous coordinates of each of the celestial bodies.
And secondly, restoring the mental content of the brain is an even more difficult task than calculating the complete trajectories of objects in the Universe by their instantaneous coordinates."
At the same time, Alexander Yakovlevich does not deny the approximation of artificial intelligence to natural, for example, in terms of voice recognition functions, images, multimedia scenes, working with abstract mathematical objects, including the formulation and proof of theorems, etc.
"However, the artificial brain will forever remain devoid of natural biological needs, emotions of grief and joy, love and happiness, thirst for knowledge, etc., since it will never possess natural life limitations, such as the physical properties of the body and the duration of its life. Of course, in the game context, formal emotions, the number of lives and other restrictions can be set for artificial intelligence. But how to ask an electronic copy of the brain everything that a particular person owes to himself, his loved ones, his circle of communication, and finally, to his own consciousness? How to ask formally reflections on the meaning of life? So it turns out that no matter how smart a car is, it will never be a person."
Genetic engineeringHow is the human genome related to the aging process and is it possible to interfere with it in order to prolong life?
"The whole genome can participate in the control of aging. Of course, there are genes or gene cascades that are more involved in this process," believes Elena Genrikhovna Pasyukova, PhD, Head of the Laboratory of Genomic Variability of IMG RAS. "I don't think there are any specific aging programs or specific aging genes, but there is just a certain process of life that is regulated by the genome and the aging process is also included in this process of life.
If we talk about prolonging life, it seems to me that in the very distant future we will be able to influence some functions of the genome, say, the epigenome or even the structure of some genes. But in order to take such steps, we must understand the consequences very well. All processes in our body are very complex and interconnected regulated. If we talk about gene therapy interventions, we should have a much higher level of knowledge. Perhaps it will be achieved someday, given the acceleration of processes in science."
Organ bioprintingWith the advent of 3D printers, many scientists became interested in bioprinting technology.
There are two different types of bioprinting: these are printing with biocompatible materials and printing with cells.
Printing with biocompatible materials is the printing of a certain frame or matrix, which will later be populated by cells. The cells inside this structure develop, and then dispose of it, replacing it with a natural one for the body.
"For example, if you populate the matrix with stem cells, they can develop into different types of cells, provided that it is possible to create the necessary environment. But creating a source of substances that induce cell development along the right path is still a problem," says Grigory Armeyev, a junior researcher at the Department of Bioengineering at Moscow State University.
Printing by cells means printing by tissue spheroids or balls consisting of many cells of the same type. The principle of printing can be compared with the assembly of the Lego constructor. Using balls of "different varieties", a three-dimensional structure is created layer by layer. Cells inside adjacent balls will then form contacts with each other. Thus, it is possible to create a structure with a given morphology, for example, one ball will develop into a vessel, and the other ball into connective tissue.
"The biggest problem of bioprinting is the lack of oxygen," says Grigory Alekseevich Armeyev, a junior researcher at the Department of Bioengineering at Moscow State University, associate professor.
"It is spent very quickly in the tissue, and there is not enough natural oxygen penetration through the tissue to nourish its deep layers. This requires a circulatory system. In the technology with spheroids, the vessel should develop, but in the time it develops, everything can die. The oxygen gradient drops very sharply when you go into the thickness of the tissue, literally after a millimeter there is practically no oxygen. So this technology is still applicable only to thin organs of the skin type. Bioprinting of complex organs has been talked about for five years, but no major progress has been made yet. I think we will learn how to print complex organs no earlier than in 10-20 years. Medicine is an inert field, and technology will have to go through a cycle of research."
It seems that prolonged youth is no longer a fantasy, and very soon we will be able to maintain beauty and health throughout our lives. But immortality still seems like an impossible mission. Even having learned how to effectively copy organs, we are unable to recreate human consciousness.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru03.04.2015