8 ms·

I don't think we should passively accept aging or death, but I'm not sure if life extension is underfunded, or how you would even demonstrate that. Many differ

by trgv 9y ago

I don't think we should passively accept aging or death, but I'm not sure if life extension is underfunded, or how you would even demonstrate that. Many different areas of research, such as cancer research, could fit under the umbrella of "life extension."

reasonattlm 9y ago
Aging research as a whole is miserably underfunded. Perhaps $3-5B/year at most, if you take the NIA budget and then make some sketchy multiplications based on studies of public/private research expenditure and US/rest of world research expenditure. Compare that with the cost of merely coping with age-related disease and disability, added to the opportunity cost of loss of capability and life, which is in the trillions per year. The ratio between costs that might be addressed and research funding is very low in comparison to other fields. Then bear in mind that most aging research is still purely investigational, not aimed at producing any sort of intervention. Calico falls into this category, more is the pity. Then bear in mind that of the interventional research, most of that is focused on calorie restriction mimetic or similar stress response tinkering that can't possibly significantly extend human life span. Then at the far bottom of this funnel, with a tiny amount of funding, is rejuvenation biotechnology of the sort advocated by the SRF, repair the damage that causes aging in order to reverse aging. So, yes. Very underfunded. Then if we look at cancer research, there is a different problem and effort to change the split of research strategy and allocation of dollars. Cancer research has progressed very slowly because there are hundreds of subtypes of cancer and researchers have been pursuing strategies that only tackle one, or only tackle a mechanism that cancers can evolve away from. What is needed for progress in cancer research is greater funding and attention for strategies that are general to many or all cancers, and which cancers cannot evolve away from. Such as CAR-T therapies, or a few other types of immunotherapy that are comparatively general, or have low costs of adaptation to different cancers, or interdiction of telomerase and ALT to prevent cancers lengthening their telomeres, or the like. The latter of those is a SENS Research Foundation initiative.

by trgv 9y ago

reasonattlm 9y ago

Aging research as a whole is miserably underfunded. Perhaps $3-5B/year at most, if you take the NIA budget and then make some sketchy multiplications based on studies of public/private research expenditure and US/rest of world research expenditure. Compare that with the cost of merely coping with age-related disease and disability, added to the opportunity cost of loss of capability and life, which is in the trillions per year. The ratio between costs that might be addressed and research funding is very low in comparison to other fields. Then bear in mind that most aging research is still purely investigational, not aimed at producing any sort of intervention. Calico falls into this category, more is the pity. Then bear in mind that of the interventional research, most of that is focused on calorie restriction mimetic or similar stress response tinkering that can't possibly significantly extend human life span. Then at the far bottom of this funnel, with a tiny amount of funding, is rejuvenation biotechnology of the sort advocated by the SRF, repair the damage that causes aging in order to reverse aging. So, yes. Very underfunded. Then if we look at cancer research, there is a different problem and effort to change the split of research strategy and allocation of dollars. Cancer research has progressed very slowly because there are hundreds of subtypes of cancer and researchers have been pursuing strategies that only tackle one, or only tackle a mechanism that cancers can evolve away from. What is needed for progress in cancer research is greater funding and attention for strategies that are general to many or all cancers, and which cancers cannot evolve away from. Such as CAR-T therapies, or a few other types of immunotherapy that are comparatively general, or have low costs of adaptation to different cancers, or interdiction of telomerase and ALT to prevent cancers lengthening their telomeres, or the like. The latter of those is a SENS Research Foundation initiative.