A personal report from the recent Undoing Aging conference in Berlin by Nicola Bagalà. The event saw many of the leading figures in aging research and rejuvenation biotechnology attend a packed conference which celebrates its second successful year.
Last Wednesday, I landed in Berlin, Germany at around 12:30. About an hour later, I was briefly in Cafè Alex, right next to the tapering TV Tower, where I met some of my colleagues from LEAF—some of whom I had never seen in person before—as well as other volunteers and members of HEALES, our friend organization. We were all there to attend the Undoing Aging 2019 conference, which would take place over the course of the next three days, bringing together experts and researchers from all over the world to discuss the latest advances, network, and share views on the biology of aging.
Thanks to video calls, meeting people face-to-face whom you’d only known through the Internet isn’t all that strange, but meeting people whom you had only read about or seen on YouTube still feels a little unreal, especially if these people are celebrities in their own field. Shortly after leaving Cafè Alex, we headed to our hotel to check in; Steve Hill and his wife Fatima—whose help over the course of my stay has been invaluable—were talking to the receptionist while Elena Milova and I were waiting right behind them. Elena and I were chatting about various things when a man who looked somewhat familiar walked through the doors; I wasn’t sure he was whom I thought he was, and as I glanced to Elena to ask for confirmation, I understood that he was indeed stem cell pioneer and AgeX CEO Mike West, who has been in the gerontology scene for quite a while now.
After being sold out this year with nearly 500 participants, we will be back in 2020!
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We’ve always wanted to live forever. But in 2019, the pursuit of immortality is big business, and Silicon Valley is at its epicenter. While the new, high-tech war on death is being led by the elite, it could wind up having big consequences for everyone else.
“If I can bring forward the defeat of aging even one day, I would have saved the lives of 110,000 people.” – Dr. Aubrey de Grey at EmTech Asia 2019.
The age-old quest for immortality was largely confined to the myths and legends of past civilizations until about just two decades back when telomerase, the active component for the gene that confers immortality to cells was successfully isolated in a science laboratory. That turned the tide on the entire conversation from whether aging could be treated, to how it could be treated.
Since then it has spawned a whole new medical field – ‘healthspan’ – where scientific research is conducted with the aim of extending healthy human lives for as long as hundreds and thousands of years, if not outright immortality. It is not surprising that the intensive research into anti-aging technologies has attracted financial backing from those who are interested in technological progress – the tech community, the likes of Google and even cryptocurrency tycoons such as Ethereum Founder, Vitalik Buterin, who donated $2.4 million worth of ether to the nonprofit foundation SENS Research Foundation, of which Dr Aubrey de Grey is the Chief Science Officer.
My mission is to drastically improve your life by sharing how you can quickly break bad habits and build and keep new healthy habits. I read the books and do all the research and share my findings with you in my YouTube videos! Not a bad deal, eh?
This video is a book review of Telomere Lengthening: Curing all diseases including cancer & aging by Dr. Bill Andrews and Jon Cornell.
- Dr. Bill Andrew’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/telomere.bill.andrews - Dr. Bill Andrew’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-h-andrews-5455b45/ - Sierra Sciences website: http://www.cure-aging-or-die-trying.com/ - Defy Time’s website where you can buy TAM-818 products: https://defytime.com/ - Watch the documentary “The Immortalists” about Dr. Bill Andrews & Aubrey de Grey: http://theimmortalists.com/watch/?fbclid=IwAR1qDvp7b1fsmN2FJy1h5nbrBxIF6mTncT2z1kj9U_Q3oGTvi8FYKWYT4IY - Telomere Lengthening: Curing all diseases including cancer & aging by Dr. Bill Andrews and Jon Cornell — book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Telomere-Lengthening-Curing-Disease-Including/dp/0692830111/ref=sr_1_2? keywords=telomere+lengthening&qid=1553009067&s=gateway&sr=8–2 - Curing Aging: Bill Andrews on Telomere Basics book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Andrews-Telomere-Basics-Curing/dp/0615949983/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/132-2131334-2950204?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0615949983&pd_rd_r=2eba79a1-4a5c-11e9-9b9e-eb22b4afd935&pd_rd_w=qnzsm&pd_rd_wg=wrlGP&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=2K7SJNB5376SQ55SA5JP&psc=1&refRID=2K7SJNB5376SQ55SA5JP - YouTube video- Bill Andrews speech at RAADfest 2018 (Sept 21, San Diego, CA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqb1D8Bwkc4 - YouTube video- Human Longevity Project Dr Bill Andrews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_nyf-gOu0 - YouTube video- Dr. Bill Andrews, “Telomere Lengthening Resetting the Clock of Aging”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccs7lXTmlyE - Life Length’s website: https://lifelength.com/
Dr. Bill Andrews commented on this book review shorting after it was uploaded to YouTube. Here’s Dr. Andrews’ comment: Great Review Brent!!! And, yes, I would love to do an interview with you. And, yes, I am coming out with a new book soon. The most potent telomerase inducer, TAM818 (www.defytime.com) produces 16% of the amount of telomerase to stop telomere shortening. Gene Editing is different than Gene Therapy (also called Gene Delivery). In our Gene Therapy (www.libellagt.com) we are delivering (not editing) the telomerase gene to human cells. Liz Parrish did Gene Therapy, not Gene Editing, though she does have big plans of doing Gene Editing also in the future. My books are also available in other languages at www.defytime.com. The reason that I wrote both books is to answer all the questions that people ask me when I speak on stage. It’s not meant to be a matter of opinion that needs scientific support. That is because most of what I say is not controversial at all. It is all widely accepted by the scientific community. Adding references would have just made the book more technical than I wanted. Nevertheless, the one chapter on “Telomerase Does Not Cause Cancer” is controversial and so, not only did I provide references, I provided a link so readers could read the full text scientific peer reviewed studies. Other than that chapter both books should be considered just aids to help others explain the field. The fact that I didn’t include a biography of myself is because the book isn’t about me. I am not trying to promote myself. I am just trying to make the world aware of the field so that more people would take an interest in supporting it; whether it is my lab or others. For those that want to know more about me my bio can be found at https://www.sierrasci.com/bill-andrews-bio. I sure hope Warren Buffet, Warren Buffet’s friend, or Dr. Peter Attia hear this book review!!! Thanks Brent!!!!
It will be our second conference totally focussed on the science of actual human rejuvenation therapies to repair the damage of aging.
We are happy to begin introducing the speakers, starting with Dr. Jerry Shay.
Dr. Shay is the Vice Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Shay´s work on the relationships of telomeres and telomerase to aging and cancer is well recognized.
“Jerry has been a stalwart supporter of the SENS concept for well over a decade, and a world leader in the telomere biology field for much longer than that. He spoke at the very first SENS conference, back in 2003, and it will be a joy to welcome him again.” says Aubrey de Grey.
At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Dr. Judith Campisi established a broad program to understand the relationship between aging and age-related disease.
Judith Campisi says: “Aging research has entered an era of unprecedented hope for interventions that can prevent, delay and, in some cases, reverse much of the functional decline that is a hallmark of aging. There is still a lot of research to be done! I am delighted to be among the speakers at Undoing Aging 2019, where I will discuss the opportunities and challenges of our recent research.”
“Judy has been a towering figure in the field of senescent cells for decades; among other things she pioneered the idea that senescent cells could be actively toxic to their environment and the discovery that cell senescence has a beneficial physiological role in wound healing. She was also one of the first senior gerontologists to appreciate the merits of the SENS approach when I first proposed it in 2000, and her support for it and us ever since has been of incalculable benefit in helping it achieve the mainstream status it enjoys today.” says Aubrey de Grey.
