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My humble opinion is that the cure for aging is going to involve creating some perfect stem cells for the body to regenerate from. The idea is that you could p

My humble opinion is that the cure for aging is going to involve creating some perfect stem cells for the body to regenerate from. The idea is that you could perform an analysis on a few thousand cells from an adult, and since the mutations in each adult cell are in different places, by looking at the most common variant of each base pair you can figure out what the perfect original dna strand looked like. Then you can create at least one perfect stem cell. The reason I like this approach is that fixing mutations by comparing multiple dna strands is something that evolution can’t do, whereas if the problem was some simple chemical that the body needed, evolution would have solved that problem on its own. So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s probably not going to work.

Ericson2314 8y ago
> evolution would have solved that problem on its own Individuals may love agelessness, but let's not kid ourselves that it's anything but a disaster for species, society, etc. More concretely, evolutionary pressure for immortality is nil when reproduction (including evolution itself!) is a more efficient way to spread and preserve genetic material. If anything, aging + death would be the evolved trait to ensure smoother adaptation!
- aristophenes 8y ago
  Agree. Immortality would be a tragedy of the commons, in my opinion. At least, in an environment with limited resources. If we were capable of interstellar travel and there was no other life out there it wouldn't be, but until that happens its ultimately good for society that it has a complete turnover every hundred years, and not just for evolutionary adaptation. Imagine if Stalin or Mao had never died. Imagine if the entire British government was run by politicians from the 1300s to the 1800s. Maybe Caesar Augustus would still be running the Roman Empire, fighting a never-ending insurgency from the prophet Muhammad. Things might have more stability, but change and opportunity would hardly exist and each succeeding generation would be permanent underclasses of children. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. " - Max Planck
  - tauwauwau 8y ago
    You may like it https://manganelo.com/chapter/epic_of_gilgamesh/chapter_0 https://manganelo.com/chapter/epic_of_gilgamesh/chapter_0
- tauwauwau 8y ago
  > Individuals may love agelessness, but let's not kid ourselves that it's anything but a disaster for species, society, etc. You're right, however to me what seems worse path to take evolutionarily is to choose to destroy accumulation of experiences and knowledge by not passing it to next generation and instead starting with the first rudimentary step of half DNA crossing combined with random mutation. Though we have developed ways (books) to pass that knowledge to next generation in place of nature, experiences are still lost. It seems like evolution is more focused on the survival than survival of the fittest.
- yukonbound 8y ago
  Another 30 years of productive healthy life, and retiring at 90 will do fine thanks.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  I sometimes take solace in political issues, that “at least the people who believe that will eventually die”. If that stops being the case it will lead to more political action. And potentially more force. Not sure if that’s good or bad for society.
reasonattlm 8y ago
There are a bunch of other things that can't be fixed by delivering youthful stem cell populations into tissues, such as the presence of garbage molecules in long-lived somatic cell populations. Even youthful tissue can't break down glucosepane cross-links, or remove senescent cells efficiently, etc. Replacing damaged stem cell populations with functional ones is just one slice of the full spectrum of rejuvenation therapies that will be needed. This is all laid out in quite a lot of detail in the SENS outline for how to bring aging under medical control. https://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research https://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research
lend000 8y ago
I've also had this idea -- I wonder if it's chance or if this is something that geneticists have thought of as well and attempted. Sampling cells from a few different reproductive cell lines should theoretically provide a strong average, perhaps with some adjustments for more common mutations across all lines/things that are more likely to be repaired. Then regenerate the telomeres and replace the DNA in the germ layers of a blastocyst and you have the foundation to replace 50+ years worth of cells, plus provide a digital copy of the DNA for the next treatment round. Keep supplying a person with "undamaged 25 year old version of their self" cells (based on telomere length) and they can stay young indefinitely without negative side effects such as continuing to grow taller, cancer from damaged DNA, etc. Still issues with arteries clogging over time, figuring out a good way to regenerate the brain, bones and joints wearing down, etc., but I feel like those are easier problems (with the exception of the brain), perhaps to which the young stem cell therapy could also be applied.
reubenswartz 8y ago
The real challenge is that you need young mitochondrial DNA, too, and that suffers more damage and has less sophisticated repair mechanisms than nuclear DNA. (This seems to be the reason that cloned animals suffer age-related issues so quickly— their mitochondria are “old”.)
erikpukinskis 8y ago
You’re assuming aging is bad for populations. My assumption is historical learning is valuable up until some percentage of your memories are false and/or obsolete. Even in a perfectly healthy individual both happen continuously. At some point an empty vessel has more utility than a trained up individual. So some heuristic that arbitrarily purges old people and their ideas is adaptive.
vagab0nd 8y ago
I think if it's possible to do in theory, evolution would find a way to do it. It's just that evolution doesn't need to get rid of aging.

Ericson2314 8y ago

> evolution would have solved that problem on its own Individuals may love agelessness, but let's not kid ourselves that it's anything but a disaster for species, society, etc. More concretely, evolutionary pressure for immortality is nil when reproduction (including evolution itself!) is a more efficient way to spread and preserve genetic material. If anything, aging + death would be the evolved trait to ensure smoother adaptation!

aristophenes 8y ago
Agree. Immortality would be a tragedy of the commons, in my opinion. At least, in an environment with limited resources. If we were capable of interstellar travel and there was no other life out there it wouldn't be, but until that happens its ultimately good for society that it has a complete turnover every hundred years, and not just for evolutionary adaptation. Imagine if Stalin or Mao had never died. Imagine if the entire British government was run by politicians from the 1300s to the 1800s. Maybe Caesar Augustus would still be running the Roman Empire, fighting a never-ending insurgency from the prophet Muhammad. Things might have more stability, but change and opportunity would hardly exist and each succeeding generation would be permanent underclasses of children. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. " - Max Planck
- tauwauwau 8y ago
  You may like it https://manganelo.com/chapter/epic_of_gilgamesh/chapter_0 https://manganelo.com/chapter/epic_of_gilgamesh/chapter_0
tauwauwau 8y ago
> Individuals may love agelessness, but let's not kid ourselves that it's anything but a disaster for species, society, etc. You're right, however to me what seems worse path to take evolutionarily is to choose to destroy accumulation of experiences and knowledge by not passing it to next generation and instead starting with the first rudimentary step of half DNA crossing combined with random mutation. Though we have developed ways (books) to pass that knowledge to next generation in place of nature, experiences are still lost. It seems like evolution is more focused on the survival than survival of the fittest.
yukonbound 8y ago
Another 30 years of productive healthy life, and retiring at 90 will do fine thanks.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
I sometimes take solace in political issues, that “at least the people who believe that will eventually die”. If that stops being the case it will lead to more political action. And potentially more force. Not sure if that’s good or bad for society.

reasonattlm 8y ago

There are a bunch of other things that can't be fixed by delivering youthful stem cell populations into tissues, such as the presence of garbage molecules in long-lived somatic cell populations. Even youthful tissue can't break down glucosepane cross-links, or remove senescent cells efficiently, etc. Replacing damaged stem cell populations with functional ones is just one slice of the full spectrum of rejuvenation therapies that will be needed. This is all laid out in quite a lot of detail in the SENS outline for how to bring aging under medical control. https://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research https://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research

lend000 8y ago

I've also had this idea -- I wonder if it's chance or if this is something that geneticists have thought of as well and attempted. Sampling cells from a few different reproductive cell lines should theoretically provide a strong average, perhaps with some adjustments for more common mutations across all lines/things that are more likely to be repaired. Then regenerate the telomeres and replace the DNA in the germ layers of a blastocyst and you have the foundation to replace 50+ years worth of cells, plus provide a digital copy of the DNA for the next treatment round. Keep supplying a person with "undamaged 25 year old version of their self" cells (based on telomere length) and they can stay young indefinitely without negative side effects such as continuing to grow taller, cancer from damaged DNA, etc. Still issues with arteries clogging over time, figuring out a good way to regenerate the brain, bones and joints wearing down, etc., but I feel like those are easier problems (with the exception of the brain), perhaps to which the young stem cell therapy could also be applied.

reubenswartz 8y ago

The real challenge is that you need young mitochondrial DNA, too, and that suffers more damage and has less sophisticated repair mechanisms than nuclear DNA. (This seems to be the reason that cloned animals suffer age-related issues so quickly— their mitochondria are “old”.)

erikpukinskis 8y ago

You’re assuming aging is bad for populations. My assumption is historical learning is valuable up until some percentage of your memories are false and/or obsolete. Even in a perfectly healthy individual both happen continuously. At some point an empty vessel has more utility than a trained up individual. So some heuristic that arbitrarily purges old people and their ideas is adaptive.

vagab0nd 8y ago

I think if it's possible to do in theory, evolution would find a way to do it. It's just that evolution doesn't need to get rid of aging.