Aubrey de Grey

Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist, Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation and VP of New Technology Discovery at AgeX Therapeutics. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007). He is known for his view that medical technology may enable human beings alive today not to die from age-related causes. Aubrey is also an international adjunct professor of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the American Aging Association, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Episode links

• Sense Research Foundation Visit
• Ending Aging Visit
• Twitter Visit
• Wikipedia Visit

Info

• Podcast website Visit
• Spotify Visit
• Full episodes playlist Visit

Episode outline

• 01:54 — The 7 kinds of damage that produce aging
• 05:13 — Loss of cells and stem cell therapy
• 07:00 — Waste products inside cells - arteriosclerosis and macular degeneration
• 08:36 — Waste products outside cells - phagocytosis by inmune stimulation
• 09:20 — Cells dividing when they are not supposed to. Nuclear mutations, cancer, inmunotherapy, telomerase/ALT gene deletion plus periodic stem cell reseeding
• 09:45 — Death resistant cells: making space for new cells, senescent cells, gene therapy
• 10:57 — Accumulation of mutations in the Mitochondria, backup copies of the DNA, allotopic expression of the 13 proteins
• 11:50 — Elasticity, major arteries: AGE-breaking molecules/enzymes
• 13:15 — Engineered negligible senescence: an engineering approach to fixing aging
• 14:25 — How much we don't need to know: Pioneering technologist vs basic scientist mindset
• 16:17 — Reaching the fundamental understanding - nearly 40 years ago
• 17:23 — Adapting existing theories to the field of aging, bringing together ideas from other fields.
• 20:44 — Using soil bacteria to degrade long-lived organic material: bringing ideas from the environmental decontamination field to the field of aging
• 21:57 — Vulcanization of science: bias against cross-disciplinary work
• 22:54 — Being an outlier
• 23:37 — From programming to leading the fight against aging
• 25:26 — Backups of genes and the key 13 proteins of the Mitochondria
• 26:23 — What is different and what is similar in the way different species age?
• 27:25 — Caenorhabditis elegans worm aging vs human aging
• 28:33 — Tortoises, shellfish vs warm blooded organisms
• 29:14 — Studying organisms closer to us in evolutionary terms: mammals
• 29:35 — The Pro aging argument: desirability vs viability
• 30:18 — The 50-50 chances of living indefinitely for those in middle age today
• 31:30 — The storytelling argument vs exploring novelty and diversity
• 33:20 — The pro-aging trance: a psychological coping mechanism
• 34:30 — The boredom argument: alzheimer at 80 vs bored at 150
• 34:59 — Overpopulation: technology increasing the carrying capacity of the planet - Renewable energy, artificial meat, desalination, bacteria that eat plastic, etc
• 37:14 — Perception of risk: self-driving cars and the lowering of risks brought by technology
• 39:45 — Today's pensions vs economic benefits of improvements in longevity
• 40:57 — Work & automation: developing a new attitude in life
• 41:45 — Longevity: attitude and motivations
• 43:44 — AGI - artificial intelligence - the artificial researcher - machine learning and drug discovery, impact on aging research
• 45:17 — Fixing aging in the brain vs the rest of the body
• 46:44 — Regulation and politics: the quick switch, the urgent need to develop anti-aging policies
• 51:14 — Nanobots and Xenobots: the utility of non-biological solutions to medical problems
• 53:14 — SENS Foundation and how to go faster
• 55:50 — Challenges ahead
• 57:05 — Making a difference in the world