In this episode, I talk to world-renowned biologist David Sinclair about aging and longevity. David rejects the notion that the deterioration of health is a natural part of growing old and asserts that aging is a disease itself that we need to reverse. But how will a reset of our biological clocks affect our interactions, responses to adversity, morality, and how we live our lives? We discuss the ethical implications of limitless lifespans and also touch on the topics of death, evolution, genetics, medicine, and data tracking.
Bio. Dr. David Sinclair is a professor in the department of genetics and co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of the scientific journal Aging. He is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. In addition to being a co-founder of several biotechnology companies, he’s the author of the book Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To. Dr. Sinclair was listed by TIME magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the world”.
Good news, everyone! We’ve been selected for a Gitcoin grant partnership to help democratize and incentivize future funding for our upcoming feature-length film’s development.
Gitcoin grants operate with crypto under a system known as “Quadratic Funding.” In other words, amounts are important, but the number of people donating also helps tremendously by boosting matching funds from a pre-established pool. So even small donation amounts can be hugely helpful. Therefore, any donation we receive from you will then be matched at an ever-increasing amount with each new donation.
We’re very excited to see where this takes us and if you’d like to contribute to the financing with more bang for your buck, check out the link below and start donating!
“The Last Generation to Die” is a cinematic quality full feature film on longevity. It’s a drama set in the future that examines the estranged relationship of two generations on the cusp of the end of aging and the ultimate merging of science and nature that will usher humanity into the next stage of evolution.
Logline: In a near future when age reversal therapies are on the cusp of becoming reality, a scientist tries to save her father from natural death.
“The Last Generation to Die” began its life as a staff-picked, 393% funded Kickstarter short film. We’re extending that life as a full feature length film. The short film was in a variety of festivals, garnering excellent reviews, and serves as a proof-of-concept for the full length feature film.
This is a short videoclip I made of the CBS News Special program entitled “Forever Young_Searching for the Fountain of Youth” aired on Nov 29, 2021.
The entire program lasts 43 minutes and in this 2-minute videoclip I highlight the excerpts I found most relevant. In the description of the video is the link to see the entire program.
El videoclip cuenta con subtítulos en Español.
This is a short clip I made of the CBS News Special program “Forever Young_Searching for the Fountain of Youth” aired on Nov 29, 2021.
To watch the entire program please clic here: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/sunday-morning-special-forever-young-searching-for-the-fountain-of-youth/
Mexican biologist Ingrid Fetter-Pruneda is studying the longevity and fertility in ants in the hope of helping to develop strategies to avoid, slow down or reverse female reproductive aging in other animals or in humans.
Fetter-Pruneda, an Assistant Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), says most animals show a trade-off between longevity and fertility, but one of the most striking features of ants is that the queens are simultaneously very long lived and very fertile, while the workers are short lived and sterile.
“I am trying to figure out the cellular and molecular mechanisms that allow queens to remain fertile throughout their relatively long lives,” Fetter-Pruneda says, “Many molecular pathways are conserved across many species, and new discoveries in ants could help direct research in other organisms.”
Kind of starts out with a no but ends in a yes. Just a few minutes long.
An increasing number of studies suggest the presence of a “metabolic clock” that controls aging. This clock involves the accumulation of metabolic alterations and a decline in metabolic homeostasis and biological fitness. There are nine cellular hallmarks of aging: telomere attrition, genomic instability, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient sensing, epigenetic alterations, and altered intercellular communication. Metabolic alterations have been implicated in each of these processes.
David Sinclair is a professor in the Department of Genetics and co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School, where he and his colleagues study sirtuins—protein-modifying enzymes that respond to changing NAD+ levels and to caloric restriction—as well as chromatin, energy metabolism, mitochondria, learning and memory, neurodegeneration, cancer, and cellular reprogramming.
Dr David Sinclair has suggested that aging is a disease—and that we may soon have the tools to put it into remission—and he has called for greater international attention to the social, economic and political and benefits of a world in which billions of people can live much longer and much healthier lives.
Dr David Sinclair is the co-founder of several biotechnology companies (Life Biosciences, Sirtris, Genocea, Cohbar, MetroBiotech, ArcBio, Liberty Biosecurity) and is on the boards of several others. He is also co-founder and co-chief editor of the journal Aging. He is an inventor on 35 patents and has received more than 35 awards and honors. In 2014, he was on Time Magazine’s list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and listed as Time’s Top 50 in healthcare in 2018.
DISCLAIMER: Please note that none of the information in this video constitutes health advice or should be substituted in lieu of professional guidance. The video content is purely for informational purposes.
The brain is really little more than a collection of electrical signals. If we can learn to catalogue those then, in theory, you could upload someone’s mind into a computer, allowing them to live forever as a digital form of consciousness, just like in the Johnny Depp film Transcendence.
But it’s not just science fiction. Sure, scientists aren’t anywhere near close to achieving such a feat with humans (and even if they could, the ethics would be pretty fraught), but there’s few better examples than the time an international team of researchers managed to do just that with the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans.
C. elegans is a little nematodes that have been extensively studied by scientists — we know all their genes and their nervous system has been analysed many times.
“Sunday Morning” anchor Jane Pauley hosts “Forever Young: Searching for the Fountain of Youth,” a one-hour primetime special exploring the wonders, rewards, and challenges of growing older, to air on CBS Sunday, November 28 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, and to stream on Paramount+.
Can we reset our biological clocks? | Watch VideoLife expectancy has increased in recent decades, but researchers are looking for ways to further slow the aging process. Correspondent Lee Cowan looks into recent developments in the study of extending human life, and efforts to ward off disease by targeting the biology of aging itself.
Join us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MichaelLustgartenPhD
Papers referenced in the video: Polyamine-rich food decreases age-associated pathology and mortality in aged mice. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19735716/
Long-term treatment with spermidine increases health span of middle-aged Sprague-Dawley male rats. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32285289/
Cardioprotection and lifespan extension by the natural polyamine spermidine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27841876/
Spermidine Prolongs Lifespan and Prevents Liver Fibrosis and Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Activating MAP1S-Mediated Autophagy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28386016/
Higher spermidine intake is linked to lower mortality: a prospective population-based study. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29955838/
