7 ms·

Just compare the effort and the investment that goes into fighting aging with what goes into fighting cancer. You can't rely on billionaires to fix everything

Just compare the effort and the investment that goes into fighting aging with what goes into fighting cancer. You can't rely on billionaires to fix everything for you. The kind of research effort that would be required to make meaningful progress against aging would likely demand hundreds of billions, spent across decades. Few billionaires have the pockets deep enough to bankroll something like this, or the long term vision. Getting aging recognized as a disease and a therapeutic target, and getting the initial effort on the scale of Human Genome Project would be a good starting point though. If there was understanding that a drug "against aging" is desirable by the healthcare systems and can get approved, Big Pharma would have a reason to try - as opposed to developing drugs for other things and hopefully stumbling on something that makes progress against aging by an accident.

imtringued 1y ago
Bill Gates has enough money for effective longevity research. Longevity research isn't even particularly expensive. The actual problem is that you would have to do selective breeding and genetic modification of humans the same way we do it with plants and animals. It is primarily an ethical problem.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  Not necessarily. We already have drugs that can hit "genetic disease" targets in adults, and we can modify adult genomes to a minor degree. Sure, it would be nigh impossible to do something like cram "genetic resistance to cancer" into a grown adult with current day tech, but there are other surfaces to attack in longevity.
sigmoid10 1y ago
Global investment in cancer research (not treatment) between 2016 and 2020 came in just under $25 billion [1]. That means someone like Elon could have financed basically all cancer research around the globe for a decade. Instead he bought twitter. And remember that the Forbes billionaires are not the most wealthy people in the world. They are just the ones living in countries with public company accounting. There is a lot of dark money in the Middle East and Russia. So it's not like they can't, it's more that this is still seen as a delusion or megalomania in these circles, since most anti aging research funded by billionaire happens very quitely by comparison. You won't hear them announce it like they do with e.g. malaria. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(23)00182-1/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...
- ACCount37 1y ago
  That's consistent with what I said, yes. Two decades of this kind of research spending add up to $100 billion. And most billionaires are closer to $5 billion rich than to $500 billion rich. It would sure be nice to have an infinite money glitch billionaire who cares a lot about funding anti-aging research and lobbying for anti-aging efforts, the way Musk cares about space exploration and trolling people online. We're lucky that at least some neglected fields get billionaire attention like this. But we can't rely on that happening.
  - sigmoid10 1y ago
    The point is if anti-aging didn't have this edgy image in billionaire circles, there would be more than enough money to go around. If everyone agrees that we should get on this like we do certain other diseases, we could certainly tap into a lot of resources.
    - ACCount37 1y ago
      I don't think there would be "enough money" just from that, but I agree that it would sure help. It's why I stress that aging should be recognized as a disease. If we had the likes of WHO and FDA in agreement that aging is unwanted and treating aging is desirable, even if it can't be done yet, it would shift the perception considerably. It would make it easier for billionaires to contribute to anti-aging research as a philanthropic effort - but it would also open many doors in terms of research funding and corporate investment.
    - dillydogg 1y ago
      Given the current state of the NIH, I'm not sure if we are "getting on this" with any diseases right now. I've seen quite a number of my colleagues end up retiring or stopping their research programs all together at a university that has its NIH funding halted for being politically insubordinate.
      - sigmoid10 1y ago

imtringued 1y ago

Bill Gates has enough money for effective longevity research. Longevity research isn't even particularly expensive. The actual problem is that you would have to do selective breeding and genetic modification of humans the same way we do it with plants and animals. It is primarily an ethical problem.

ACCount37 1y ago
Not necessarily. We already have drugs that can hit "genetic disease" targets in adults, and we can modify adult genomes to a minor degree. Sure, it would be nigh impossible to do something like cram "genetic resistance to cancer" into a grown adult with current day tech, but there are other surfaces to attack in longevity.

sigmoid10 1y ago

Global investment in cancer research (not treatment) between 2016 and 2020 came in just under $25 billion [1]. That means someone like Elon could have financed basically all cancer research around the globe for a decade. Instead he bought twitter. And remember that the Forbes billionaires are not the most wealthy people in the world. They are just the ones living in countries with public company accounting. There is a lot of dark money in the Middle East and Russia. So it's not like they can't, it's more that this is still seen as a delusion or megalomania in these circles, since most anti aging research funded by billionaire happens very quitely by comparison. You won't hear them announce it like they do with e.g. malaria. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(23)00182-1/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...

ACCount37 1y ago
That's consistent with what I said, yes. Two decades of this kind of research spending add up to $100 billion. And most billionaires are closer to $5 billion rich than to $500 billion rich. It would sure be nice to have an infinite money glitch billionaire who cares a lot about funding anti-aging research and lobbying for anti-aging efforts, the way Musk cares about space exploration and trolling people online. We're lucky that at least some neglected fields get billionaire attention like this. But we can't rely on that happening.
- sigmoid10 1y ago
  The point is if anti-aging didn't have this edgy image in billionaire circles, there would be more than enough money to go around. If everyone agrees that we should get on this like we do certain other diseases, we could certainly tap into a lot of resources.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    I don't think there would be "enough money" just from that, but I agree that it would sure help. It's why I stress that aging should be recognized as a disease. If we had the likes of WHO and FDA in agreement that aging is unwanted and treating aging is desirable, even if it can't be done yet, it would shift the perception considerably. It would make it easier for billionaires to contribute to anti-aging research as a philanthropic effort - but it would also open many doors in terms of research funding and corporate investment.
  - dillydogg 1y ago
    Given the current state of the NIH, I'm not sure if we are "getting on this" with any diseases right now. I've seen quite a number of my colleagues end up retiring or stopping their research programs all together at a university that has its NIH funding halted for being politically insubordinate.
    - sigmoid10 1y ago