Is aging a natural process that we simply have to accept as a fact of life?
A philosopher would say yes. Many doctors would also agree: that our cells eventually reach a point where they can no longer divide and either die or reach senescence, a retirement phase. Many scientists believe in the “Hayflick limit” — that no one can live past about 120 years old. These people might also say that aging — and dying — is a good thing; that the world is already overcrowded, that we already cannot handle our aging populations, that life must be finite to appreciate it, that all good things must come to an end.
But there’s a growing group of people — including gerontologists, biologists, engineers, and futurists—who believe that aging is a disease in itself, a disease that can be cured. That aging is not an immutable process, an inevitable “dying of the light,” to quote poet Dylan Thomas, but one we can “rage against” — through science, drugs, and lifestyle changes.
Ira Pastor, ideaXme longevity and aging ambassador and founder of Bioquark interviews Luba Greenwood J.D., Strategic Business Development and Corporate Ventures, Verily (Google Life Sciences), Board Member Mass Bio and Brooklyn ImmunoTherapeutics LLC.
Note: Following this interview, Verily announced a major set of collaborations with big pharma companies, further executing on its strategy in healthcare. Breaking news: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/20/alphabet-verily-doing-clinical-trials-with-novartis-sanofi-pfizer.html?fbclid=IwAR15WEy1auqD4PexMgxUkZSEgUnaPMtpI0IompSxdAlv0nqZ6T4eLzIucEI
Ira Pastor comments:
In 2019 we have surpassed $7 trillion in total annual healthcare expenditures around the globe. As part of that $7 trillion, we’re now spending close to a $1 trillion a year on pharmaceutical products, $350 billion on medical devices, $200 billion on new Life Sciences R&D. Equally fascinating to note are the names of organizations becoming involved in this space in 2019.
From a U.S. centric perspective, 15 years ago when evaluting. Healthcare Clinic, the first thing that would come to mind would be Kaiser Permanente; not Apple; Medical Devices, Baxter or Medtronic; not Amazon would come to mind. Pharmaceuticals, you would think Merck, Pfizer, Novartis, etc.; Not Google / Alphabet Inc. and their Calico longevity drug development initiatives.
Yet in the last couple years alone, these big tech companies have all made major strategic moves into health care, with the goal of using their Silicon Valley-honed skills (and major piles of cash) to try and disrupt the industry with various “moon shot” thinking, and the interests of these companies are really quite diverse from their core businesses.
Alongside our Ending Age-related Diseases 2019 annual conference, we are proud to announce the launch of a special pre-conference biotech workshop led by Dr. Kelsey Moody, CEO of Ichor Therapeutics, a successful and rapidly growing rejuvenation biotechnology company.
This joint event between the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation and Ichor Therapeutics is an essential workshop where you will learn about the fundamentals of launching and growing a successful biotechnology company with an emphasis on the nuances specific to the emerging rejuvenation biotechnology industry.
The role that the gut microbiome plays in aging is increasingly being appreciated in the research world as more evidence arrives to support it. A new publication reviews the various supporting evidence and takes a look at the gut microbiome in the context of nutrient-rich diets and how they facilitate the progression of dysbiosis and disease [1].
What is the microbiome?
The microbiome is the varied community of bacteria, archaea, eukarya, and viruses that inhabit our guts. The four bacterial phyla of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria comprise 98% of the intestinal microbiome.
As time passes, the number of damaged, ‘senescent’ cells in our bodies increases. These in turn are responsible for many effects of ageing. Now scientists are working to eliminate them.
