Lifeboat Foundation

Understanding the factors that control aging has been one of humanity’s endless pursuits, from the mystical fountain of youth to practical healthful regimens to prolong life expectancy.

A team of scientists at the University of California San Diego has helped decipher the dynamics that control how our cells age, and with it implications for extending human longevity. As described in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group led by biologist Nan Hao employed a combination of technologies in engineering, computer science and biology to analyze molecular processes that influence aging.

As cells age, damage in their DNA accumulates over time, leading to decay in normal functioning and eventually resulting in death. A natural biochemical process known as “chromatin silencing” helps protect DNA from damage. The silencing process converts specific regions of DNA from a loose, open state into a closed one, thus shielding DNA regions. Among the molecules that promote silencing is a family of proteins—broadly conserved from bacteria to humans—known as sirtuins. In recent years, chemical activators of sirtuins have received much attention and are being marketed as nutraceuticals to aid chromatin silencing in the hopes of slowing the aging process.

Continue reading “Scientists decipher mechanisms underlying the biology of aging” »

Thank you to everyone who took part in Longevity Month 2017!

Over the past few years, there has been a tradition of longevity researchers and activists around the world to organize events on or around October 1 — the UN International Day of Older Persons, or Longevity Day. In recent years, this has been extended to include the entire month of October as a Longevity Month, in which activists organize various activities and events to raise awareness for aging research.

This year, we have continued the tradition with our Longevity Month “I am the Lifespan” event, where people tell us their stories and how they got interested in aging research and doing something about age-related diseases. We are pleased to say that the response to our Longevity Month event has been a great success, with lots of videos being sent in by people from the community. We have been showcasing them on our Facebook event page during the last few weeks, and as the event has now ended, we wanted to share a few more with you and tell you a little bit about some of the participants.

Continue reading “I Am The Lifespan – Thank You for Making Longevity Month 2017 a Success” »

Why eradicating age-related diseases through rejuvenation biotechnology is probably not going to result in ever-living tyrants.

Suppose there was a country ruled by an evil dictator. Further, suppose the entire world was plagued by a terrible disease affecting 100% of the population. The disease isn’t infectious, but it is congenital. It progresses extremely slowly over the course of several decades, but it eventually ends up severely impairing one’s quality of life, and it is always fatal; it’ll take its own sweet time to kill a patient, but it always will, and it isn’t going to be fun.

If it was suggested that a cure for this disease should not be developed so that we could be sure the aforementioned dictator will eventually pass away, would you agree? Would your answer change if you lived in that country?

Continue reading “Why Eradicating Age-related Diseases is Unlikely to Create Immortal Dictators” »

The Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, in collaboration with Singularity University Moscow Chapter and consulting group Deloitte, is hosting in Moscow an expert discussion on how to inform society about the potential and the advancement of gerontology and preventive medicine.

Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, in collaboration with Singularity University Moscow Chapter and consulting group Deloitte, are hosting in Moscow an expert discussion on how to inform society about the potential and the advancement of gerontology and preventive medicine. These experts believe that attracting people’s attention to the capabilities of medical technologies to prevent aging might help extend the healthy period of life and significantly decrease morbidity from age-related diseases.

The panel discussion “6 ways to talk to people about ending aging” will bring together famous futurists, scientists, science popularizers and public figures who foster the dissemination of the idea to prevent aging in Russia and other countries.

Continue reading “6 Ways to Talk to People about Ending Aging – Moscow Nov 4th” »

Dr. Aubrey De Grey is a biomedical gerontologist and the Chief Science Officer at SENS Research Foundation, a biomedical charity that funds research dedicated to combating aging. His research interests encompass the characterization of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism (“damage”) that constitute mammalian aging, and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage. In line with his research, De Grey gave a talk at The Aspen Abu Dhabi Ideas Festival focusing on “Rejuvenating Biotechnology: Why age may soon cease to mean aging”.

In March 2017, the Aspen Abu Dhabi Ideas Forum welcomed some of the brightest and most interesting minds from the UAE and around the world to discuss four of the most important moonshot challenges facing our planet. The event was inspired by the world-famous Aspen Ideas Festival that has been taking place in Colorado since 2005, as a place for scientists, artists, politicians, business leaders, historians and educators to discuss some of the most fascinating ideas of our time. The 2017 Aspen Abu Dhabi Ideas Forum topics included: “System Shock: Calming the ‘politics of anger’”, “Beyond GDP: Targeting ‘all-in’ human welfare”, “Health: Extending the healthy human lifespan” and “Space: Living Sustainably beyond Earth”.

Continue reading “Dr Aubrey de Grey — Rejuvenating biotech: Why age may soon cease to mean aging” »

Everlasting boredom is a common concern when it comes to the idea of extended human lifespans but is it likely to happen? We take a look at this common concern.

Everlasting boredom is a common concern when it comes to the idea of extended human lifespans. There are many who expect life to become empty and meaningless with time because everything has been already experienced; there is nothing else to discover, nothing else can surprise or please.

This idea has become so ingrained in our collective psyche that its mark appears constantly in our most popular works of fiction. The elves from the Lord of the Rings, for example, are described as lacking passion and ambition because of their extended lives, as compared to humans whose short lifespans impel them to bold action. Another omnipresent trope is the tale of the tortured immortal who would do anything to become human again or to end the curse with the finality of death.

Continue reading “Will increased lifespans be boring?” »

Kurweil and others also in this well done 5-minute newscast:

http://www.ntv.ru/video/1530566/

Juvenescence: investing in the age of longevity.

With their previous books published over the past 9 years, Mellon and Chalabi have established an excellent track record of recognising investment opportunities before they become mainstream, starting with forecasting the Great Recession in 2008, and identifying gold as an excellent hedge. More recently, they have written about life sciences, and their recommended stocks in Cracking the Code have outperformed every major market in the world. Equally their main stock picks in Fast Forward have yielded market busting returns.

They believe that to be successful, investors need to be curious, adaptable and apply themselves before they commit capital to an idea. For this new book, Jim and Al have spent a year sifting through the cutting-edge research, visiting laboratories and interviewing key opinion leaders in the field of life extension. They have written this up for the investor, stripping away the technical jargon and demystifying the information to help you to understand the science and clearly identify the key industry participants and investment opportunities.

Continue reading “Jim being interviewed on CNBC in Hong Kong earlier today” »

Defeating age-related diseases may create challenges for society, but is that worse than not doing anything?

In these six years, I’ve spent as a rejuvenation advocate, I’ve had to deal with the traditional objections raised against the idea of longer lifespans. These objections touch a variety of different topics, but they aren’t terribly many: we’re talking about maybe a dozen of them, and these days, I hardly ever hear an objection I haven’t discussed before.

However few or many, and deserving of specific answers, these objections may be, they can all be reduced down to a single, general form: “Rejuvenation biotechnologies would cause [insert problem here], so it’s best not to go there.” And just like there are specific answers for each specific objection, there are general answers for their general form—Aubrey de Grey’s famous “two more general answers”.

Continue reading “Rejuvenation May Bring Challenges to Society but are they Worse than Age-related Diseases?” »