> ZOLTAN ISTVAN
> Even 10 years ago, the idea of reversing ageing and conquering human mortality was still fringe science, seen as snake-oil research by most scientists, large pharmaceutical companies, and the public. What a difference a decade makes. Anti-ageing science is poised to become a major industry in the biotech world.
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> To prove its promise, the first million-dollar bet on who can live the longest (for company stock — a signed deal likely made public later this week) was recently struck. It was made last month by two leading longevity advocates at the biggestannual healthcare investing event of the year, the JPMorgan Health Care Conference.
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> Dmitry Kaminskiy, senior partner of Hong Kong-based technology venture fund,Deep Knowledge Ventures, and Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of bioinformatics company Insilico Medicine Inc. which specialises in drug discovery and drug repurposing for ageing and age-related diseases, signed a wager to indicate exactly how sure they are that science is turning the tide against the eternal problem of human ageing.
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> The terms go like this:
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>> – If one of the parties passes away before the other, $US1 million dollars in Insilico Medicine stock will be passed to the surviving party
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>> – The agreement will vest once both parties reach 100 years
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>> – Parties agree not to accelerate each other’s demise (i.e. try to kill each other)
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> “Longevity competitions may be a great way to combat both psychological and biological ageing,” Dr Zhavoronkov emailed me. “I hope that we will start a trend.” He sees longevity bets catching on around the world, and thinks if people will embrace competition to live longer, they may leave behind a global culture that largely accepts ageing and human death as a given.
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> Kaminskiy agrees. “I would really like to make similar bets with Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg so they could live longer lives and create great products, but I don’t think they will be worthy competitors on longevity,” he wrote me in an email. “But I would like to challenge Sergey Brin and Larry Page to a similar competition due to their seemingly high interest in the sphere and Calico project.”
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> There’s been a plethora of activity recently in the longevity field, also known as life extension science, the practice of trying to find ways to stop ageing and disease. Its supporters are often called life extensionists, transhumanists and immortalists, and they aim to use medical discoveries in regenerative medicine, stem cells, tissue rejuvenation, molecular repair, pharmaceuticals and organ replacementas means to live longer.
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> Reuters reported that Dr Aubrey de Grey, a leading biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist at SENS Research Foundation, thinks scientists may be able to control ageing in the near future, “I’d say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing ageing under what I’d call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so.”
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> The last two years have seen the creation of major anti-ageing companies, such as Google’s Calico and J. Craig Venture’s new San Diego-based genome sequencingstartup Human Longevity, (co-founded with Peter Diamandis of the X-Prize Foundation and stem cell pioneer Robert Hariri) which already has 70 million dollars in financing. Billionaires like Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel are also funding research into longevity science.
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> There’s a growing stream of anti-ageing studies, discoveries and projects appearing in science journals and majormedia — the US political Transhumanist Party has made dedicating national resources to life extension science its toppriority for Americans.
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> “Seems like a new investment boom is coming, resembling the Dot Com boom,” Kaminskiy told me.
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> So is this kind of longevity wager just a gimmick, or can it actually help anti-ageing science out? Andrew Garazha, an analyst at England-based biotechnology and regenerative medicine company Ageing Analytics, who witnessed the bet and first told me about the story, explained the significance in an email:
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>> The bet signifies:
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>> 1. We are very confident that lifespans will be extended dramatically
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>> 2. Competing for longevity provides extra incentives to take care of our health today and try various approaches to extend lifespans
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>> 3. Competing for longevity provides extra motivation to live
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>
> Garazha has a point about competition. Historically speaking, other competitions and bets have been made to further science and humanity’s ambitions. Napolean Bonaparte offered 12,000 Franks for anyone who could learn to preserve food, something that would greatly help his far-off military campaigns. The winner was Nicolas François Appert, whose method of boiling and sealing food in bottles in 1809 led to canned food.
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> Of course other bets, competitions and races are more well-known: The X Prize competition, the Soviet and American race to the moon during the Cold War, and even IBM’s Deep Blue beating Gary Kasparov in chess. This match-up was originally spurred by a competition, in which the IBM team won the $US100,000 prize.
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> Longevity competitions themselves may seem new and futuristic, but they have some historical precedence. A moderately popular investment annuity plan in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries called tontines encouraged competition to live longer by giving investment funds of deceased participants to living participants.
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> A more well-known longevity bet was made by 90-year-old Jeanne Calment and attorney Andre-Francois Raffray. The agreement was that Raffray would pay her a monthly amount of $US500 while she was living — but he would inherit her apartment after she died. Given her old age, it seemed like a prudent business move. But Calment went on to become a supercentenarian, dying at 122.5 years, which is now the longest confirmed lifespan of any human being on record. Ironically, Raffray died before Calment, but not before paying double what the apartment was worth.
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> If the bet between Kaminsky and Zharvorokov seems a like a way to generate publicity hype for longevity science, that’s because it is. But like many other longevity leaders, they are not in this to for money or fame. They are doing this for a singular and extremely human reason: They don’t want to die. And they want others to know that — in the 21st Century, an age spilling over with new radical science, medicine, and technology — they might not have to either.
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> “Technology is evolving so fast,” Kaminskiy said, “that I have no doubt that we will be able to live centuries instead of decades.”
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> Picture: Shutterstock
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> Zoltan Istvan is the author of The Transhumanist Wager and founder of theTranshumanist Party.
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> DISCUSS
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> 14 COMMENTS | REPLY
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> kikadik @kikadik
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> 24/02/15 12:54 PM
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> Cell degradation, or telomere reversal, has already been achieved in mice, so it won’t be long before they get it to human level. Sooner rather than later for me though, I ain’t gettin” any younger, you know. 🙂
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> Reply
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> Maid Guest
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> 24/02/15 1:02 PM
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> So what will people do with the more time besides watch endless reruns of Seinfeld?
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> Meh, we don’t need more life, we need more meaning
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> Reply
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> nodeity @nodeity
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> 24/02/15 2:08 PM
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> I disagree! With population control, and technology increasing productivity, we could all live long prosperous, and yes, meaningful lives. Population control, be that a more even spread throughout the planet, or actual sterilisation, is the biggest issue, not aging.
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> Reply
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> masterc82 @masterc82
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> 25/02/15 8:46 AM
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> Nodeity that is a terrible idea. Extending your own life and then use technology to disallow new life? This kind of thinking can only benefit the 1% as the rich afford the technologies to live longer, and the poor aren’t allowed to breed.
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> Maid, i’m with you. I’ve already got 70-100 years if I’m lucky, that’s plenty of time for me.
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> Reply
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> nodeity @nodeity
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> 25/02/15 9:42 AM
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> You clearly have a personal agenda here, I’m going to guess religious, but whatever. How is preventing people from filling up the planet and using ever more resources a bad thing?
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> Reply
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> evarn @evarn
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> 27/02/15 2:04 PM
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> I’m guessing you don’t have children. Do your time, die and then let someone else have a go. I agree we need to limit population growth – lets do that with natural attrition and a lower birth rate.
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> Reply
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> nodeity @nodeity
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> 28/02/15 9:48 AM
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> My ability to procreate is not the issue, and frankly, telling me to do my time and die, is just plain arrogant, not to mention bloody rude. I’m also going to guess, considering your objection to birth control, that you too are religious? No matter, reducing population needs to happen. Either that or we get off the planet and root like rabbits!
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> LAST EDITED 28/02/15 9:50 AM
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> Reply
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> evarn @evarn
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> 28/02/15 9:52 AM
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> hey, wasn’t a personal attack – I’m suggesting everyone do their time, die and let the next generation have a turn.
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> Reply
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> Magani Guest
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> 24/02/15 2:12 PM
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> On a personal level, I’d love to live to 125+ (providing the grey cells were still functioning as they currently are).
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> Conversely though, it seems to me that the carrying capacity of the planet has been exceeded by a factor of two or three and there are a huge number on our little blue ball in space who have very little quality of life, or any promise of such.
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> So my take from this is that in 20~30 years time, the ‘haves’ will have extended fulfilling lives while the ‘have-nots’ are still sitting in the dirt in 3rd world countries trying to find clean water and try to make it to 60 or so.
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> Sorry for the pessimism. Maybe one or two of the world’s top 3 religions might like to take another look at contraception?
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> Let the down votes begin…
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> Reply
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> masterc82 @masterc82
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> 25/02/15 9:15 AM
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> That’s not pessimism imo, that’s realism. Any technology that lengthens lives will be available to haves, and unavailable to have nots.
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> Imo carrying capacity hasn’t been reached at all, it’s not about numbers of people, it’s about where you are born and into what family, and if you’re born into the right country with the wrong family there is still opportunity. With 1billion or 50billion, there will still be haves and have nots.
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> Sucks to be born an african kid in nigeria.
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> Reply
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> nodeity @nodeity
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> 25/02/15 9:46 AM
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> What the hell does carrying capacity have to do with it? If the planet can’t feed all the people, then we need to reduce the population to a point where it can!
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> Reply
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> evarn @evarn
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> 27/02/15 2:06 PM
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> There is plenty of food for everyone – the problem is distribution and waste.
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> Reply
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> nodeity @nodeity
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> 28/02/15 9:49 AM
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> I believe I covered that in my original reply to @Maid. Population control, be that a more even spread throughout the planet, or actual sterilisation, is the biggest issue, not aging
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> Reply
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> spartan-jack-17 @spartan-jack-17
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> 24/02/15 4:11 PM
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> Has anyone read the Mars trilogy? On of my favorite things from it is the treatments developed to lengthen life, because of how accurate they are, they’re essentially all the same things people talk about today, like repairing damaged DNA.
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> Reply
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