How Aubrey de Grey Old Age Wins

Last week employees STRF.ru We met with the British biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey. During an exclusive interview with a famous British scientist, it turned out that he has no plans to test an anti-aging remedy, which is being developed under his leadership by a huge consortium of scientists from around the world. Help STRF.ru:

Aubrey de Grey (Dr. Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey), Doctor of Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge, Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of the Methuselah Foundation, a British organization dedicated to finding funds and funding research aimed at prolonging human life.

Mr. de Grey, you are often accused of trying to "play God" by doing research, the purpose of which is to extend the "time allotted to a person." How do you fend off these accusations?– I am deeply convinced that unwillingness to prolong life will be a terrible crime against the "higher forces".

After all, aging brings pain, suffering and infirmity, it kills people. All the major religions say that we must minimize suffering. If God wants us to live up to exactly 100 years, then he will find a way to realize his plan. The Holy Scriptures do not indicate that we should not ease the agony of old age.

And when, presumably, will the means to ease the agony of old age be ready?– We do not know how long it will take to achieve a sustainable positive result from the use of our technology.

We are constantly in a hurry, as many people die every day. Our delay will lead to the fact that some people will lose the chance to prolong their lives.

Let's talk about the practical aspects of your research. Developments in this area certainly require significant resources. Are there any problems with financing?– At the moment, there are no difficulties with this, since our current research does not involve particularly large investments.

In some areas, research was conducted outside the framework of the SENS program.

When I first made a detailed calculation of the project six years ago, I came to the conclusion that 500 researchers would need to be involved at its initial stage, and the costs would amount to $ 100 million per year. In biology, the work of one scientist costs about 200 thousand dollars. This figure includes salary, equipment costs, and so on.

By what criteria did you select partners to participate in the project?– The main criterion is the presence of extensive experience in a particular field of research that interests us.

The scientific group with the greatest potential was selected for each specific sector. Moreover, the presence of experience does not necessarily have to be reflected in the number of publications. It's important what people have in their heads, what ideas.

Contacts have also been established with those scientific groups whose equipment could be used to obtain accurate results. I found people, met with them at conferences or just addressed them directly, told them about the features of the SENS program. If they showed interest, I gave them money and the work started.

What model objects do you use?– For the most part, we work on representatives of mammals, the main object is a mouse.

Let's take, for example, a two-year-old mouse (this age is equivalent to a 50-year-old human. – approx. authors) and through the use of SENS, we add two more years of healthy life to her – so to speak, "beyond the norm". A mouse from a long-lived line lives on average for three years, and with the help of our technology, this period will increase to five.

We are also working with fruit flies and yeasts, and there is already some clarity about these organisms, there are approaches to increasing their life expectancy. But there are no guarantees that a similar method will "work" in the human body, so it is impossible to extrapolate the results obtained on these animals to humans – the differences in metabolism are too great.

What if the methods that have proven their workability on simple organisms or the same mice, not only will not work against a person, but will cause him irreparable harm.– If it turns out that the effect is really negative, then we will have to study the entire chain of interactions in order to accurately determine the "weak point".

Here it will be necessary to use a chimpanzee – a transitional model between a mouse and a human. And as soon as we find the problem area, we will get the key to creating a new therapy devoid of this flaw. The modification will first be tested on mice, because if the previous technology shows good results on them, then the updated one will improve it to the level of "excellent".

And who will be involved in the technology security expertise?– As soon as the technology is developed to the level of practical application, its first testers will not be those people who want to defeat aging, but those who suffer from incurable diseases.

Each type of therapy should be selected individually, taking into account the existing disease. It seems to me that the method of testing the safety of all technologies developed under the SENS program will not be radically different from the clinical trials of a new drug. And when we are ready to use the final SENS product, which is called "in full force", then we will already have tested all its components. Of course, it will be necessary to test the effect of the entire complex of technologies in case of their simultaneous application, but this can be done not on humans, but on the same mice, dogs or chimpanzees. This does not exclude the need for careful monitoring of possible side effects.

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The name of Aubrey de Gray's program SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) can be translated as "strategy for achieving negligible aging by engineering methods" or "methods of engineering slowing down aging".  The participants of the program consider aging as a set of progressive changes in the composition of the body at the molecular and cellular levels, which are caused by side effects of the main metabolism. It is assumed that the methods of engineering deceleration of aging will be used not to interfere with metabolism as such, but to eliminate accumulated damage. This will allow indefinitely postponing the onset of a condition in which the damage would lead to certain pathologies. Thus, these methods are initially focused on aging, but not sick people.

I assume that there should be no significant problems with registration and verification in different countries. My confidence is based on the fact that the economic efficiency of the proposed technology will be very high. A country that has implemented SENS will be able to take more careful care of people's health, and health care costs will be slightly lower than they are now.

I think, if successful, SENS will be used as prescribed by a doctor, exactly the same as it happens with conventional medicines.

Mr. De Grey, are you personally ready to test your technology on yourself?– I hope that I will not be the first tester, since I never wanted to test the effect of new medical technologies on myself.

After all, every new technology implies risk. But if there is an urgent need for this, or only a test on myself will save the situation, I will go for it.

At what age does it make sense to use those drugs that are being developed by a consortium of scientists under your leadership?– Over the age of 50.

This technology is able to rejuvenate a person by eliminating intracellular "garbage", which leads to irreversible damage to cells and tissues, that is, to aging. The young have few such injuries, so the technology being developed will not help them. Using it at the age of 30 is just as pointless as taking a freshly purchased car to the garage for repairs.

Thus, your technology will allow you to be not "forever young", but "forever fifty years old" and extending the life span may not add quality to it. Will, say, 80-year-olds be able to reproduce in the same way as they do at 30?– The use of SENS will allow people to have children exactly when they want to.

Age will not be a hindrance to them. But if we look at the situation in developed countries, we will see that people with a good education and a job give birth to children relatively late, at 35-40 years old. Before such a responsible step as raising children, they want to have time to properly arrange their lives. I am sure that if the developed technology is successfully applied, there will be more opportunities for this, and people will have more time to conceive children. For example, when an average life expectancy of around 150 years is reached, a person will be quite capable of "shackling his happiness" by the 70th year, and then devote himself to family and raising children.

What are you going to do after the successful completion of the project?– I'll disappear.

Probably, I will leave for a long vacation and will watch "from the dark" what is happening. The last time I had a vacation was in 1999.

The authors of the material thank the Charity Foundation "Science for Life Extension" for organizing the interview.
We talked Vladimir Sychev, Dmitry Chuvelev
STRF.ruPortal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru

10.03.2009