July 2019 will see the launch of our second Ending Age-Related Diseases conference at the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, Cooper Union in New York City. The event was so popular last year that we decided to expand it to two full days of science and biotech business this year.
We will be bringing you the latest aging research, investment, and business knowledge from some of the top experts in the industry. We will be packing two days full of talks from and discussion panels with the people who are developing the technologies that could change the way we regard and treat aging forever.
With just over a month left to grab a lower-cost early bird ticket for the event, we thought that it would be a good opportunity to take a look at what we have in store. We have already announced lots of inspiring speakers from the research and business sectors of the industry, and here are just a few of them.
Here’s an important story I wrote on #cryonics for Quartz about a recent tragedy of a young girl and society’s reluctance to give people rights after death. I think something like “Danielle’s Law” could be important moving forward:
Cryogenics is facing legal hurdles for people who want their bodies to be frozen for the future.
TELL CONGRESS: PROTECT BIOIDENTICALS! The FDA is trying to take away our access to bioidentical hormones (also called BHRT). Like millions of you, I don’t want to live in a world without BHRThese life-saving hormones have made the aging process a joy! I have energy and vitality! I sleep great! My weight is under control! I have a healthy libido! My hair, skin and nails are strong! And my overall health is incredible. I attribute my successful aging to Bioidentical Hormone Replacement. The time to act is NOW! Visit: http://SaveBioidenticals.com/ and LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD!
NIR BARZILAI HAS a plan. It’s a really big plan that might one day change medicine and health care as we know it. Its promise: extending our years of healthy, disease-free living by decades.
The more researchers learn about metformin, the more it seems like a medieval wonder drug that could extend lifespans in the 21st century.
Firstly, it greatly depends on how you define immortality. If you define it as living forever and being indestructible as in a comic book, then, no, it is highly unlikely. However, if you define it in terms of showing no decline in survival characteristics, no increase in disease incidence and no increase in mortality with advancing age, then yes. The first is a science-fiction fantasy; the second is based on real-world biology that evolution has already selected for in certain species. We call this state negligible senescence.
Senescence and negligible senescence
Senescence refers to the gradual deterioration of aging and is typically very obvious in almost every species. More accurately, senescence refers to a decline of survival characteristics, such as strength, mobility, senses, and age-related increases in mortality along with a decrease in reproductive capability. Mortality rates for humans and most animals increase dramatically with age beyond reaching reproductive maturity.
Death is the one thing that’s guaranteed in today’s uncertain world, but now a new start-up called Humai thinks it might be able to get rid of that inconvenient problem for us too, by promising to transfer people’s consciousness into a new, artificial body.
If it sounds like science fiction, and that’s because it still is, with none of the technology required for Humai’s business plan currently up and running. But that’s not deterring the company’s CEO, Josh Bocanegra, who says his team will resurrect their first human within 30 years.
So how do you go about transferring someone’s consciousness to another robot body? As Humai explains on their website (which comes complete with new-age backing music):
Researchers at the Salk Institute have moved a step closer to a possible therapy for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that is often described as accelerated aging, as people with it appear to age far faster than normal. Using a new CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy in a mouse model, they were able to slow down the pace of the condition, improve health, and increase lifespan.
What is Hutchinson-Gilford progeria?
Progeria is a degenerative disorder caused by a mutation in the LMNA gene. This disease has an early onset and progresses rapidly, and animals and humans with progeria show symptoms that are similar to regular aging, only on a much-accelerated timescale, giving them drastically shorter lifespans than normal. Humans with this condition rarely live very long, with the average being only 13 years old.
“Paul and Laura have made huge contributions to the biomedical gerontology field in recent years. Their work focuses on the characterisation and alleviation of the aspects of aging that are driven by DNA damage. At UA2019, their talks will describe their recent advances in the mechanistic understanding of DNA damage, aided by spectacularly good mouse models, and also their identification of natural products with potent senolytic activity”, says Aubrey de Grey.
Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a rare lethal genetic disorder characterized by symptoms reminiscent of accelerated aging. The major underlying genetic cause is a substitution mutation in the gene coding for lamin A, causing the production of a toxic isoform called progerin. Here we show that reduction of lamin A/progerin by a single-dose systemic administration of adeno-associated virus-delivered CRISPR–Cas9 components suppresses HGPS in a mouse model.