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If you're talking about engineered longevity and you're not talking about the brace of technologies that fall under the SENS umbrella [1], or even the Hallmarks

If you're talking about engineered longevity and you're not talking about the brace of technologies that fall under the SENS umbrella [1], or even the Hallmarks of Aging catalog [2] then you're missing the most important part of the field. All of the meaningful advances of the future are going to emerge from repair of the causes of aging, not from tinkering with the operation of metabolism to try to recapture some fraction of the benefits of calorie restriction. Or even, hell, five times the benefit of calorie restriction. That won't move the needle far in humans. You'll be a lot healthier, but still die on much the same schedule as your parents and grandparents. It costs two billion dollars or more to push through one drug candidate for a given desired effect. Current estimates suggest you could implement the entire SENS program of rejuvenation treatments in mice for that amount of money over 10 years. Those are technologies with potentially unbound gains on healthy life span; not just slowing down aging, but actually reversing its causes. Periodic repair has no limit on the degree to which it can extend life, and is far more effective for old people than merely slowing aging. Given the options here I know what I'd rather see the research community focusing on, but getting more R&D to focus on repair over metabolic tinkering is an ongoing process of persuasion and disruption. You might look at senescent cell clearance for an example of a SENS technology that is slowly breaking into mainstream research notice. Oh so slowly. It's almost painful to watch so much time and effort being directed to old-style mine the natural world drug discovery for marginal treatments unlikely to move the needle when we're in the midst of a biotechnology revolution and so much more is possible. [1]: http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research [2]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/

Mitchhhs 11y ago
I completely agree with you. Trying to find a drug that can affect the complex molecular machinery in just the right way is likely not going to work. A more likely outcome is that we will find a drug that can treat a certain age-related disease by working on these pathways.
deegles 11y ago
Sorry if I don't articulate this well. I'm very much in favor of life extension and SENS but I get the perception that it's still a "fringe" science or maybe it's not perceived as well by the broader community. Can you speculate why there isn't more money and effort being directed to this research if it has so much potential?
- reasonattlm 11y ago
  1) pure science changes direction very, very slowly under the best of circumstances. 2) regulation strongly constrains funding by steering it towards drug discovery. 3) people don't like being told they're doing it wrong, even when it is absolutely true. 4) the real goal of most researchers is to catalog metabolism, not to produce any way of treating aging.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  1) Lack of visibility; how many people even know this research is going on, and that it's potentially close enough to not classify as science fiction? 2) A perception as "natural", together with the naturalistic fallacy. The black plague and cancer are "natural" too, but we have no qualms eradicating them; yet for some reason, people romanticize death, especially when thinking primarily about it applying to other people rather than themselves. 3) Related to that naturalistic fallacy, aging afflicts a less sympathetic group. Given a disease that strikes down the "young and healthy", or the affliction hidden behind such thoughtless and abominable phrases as "it was their time" or "natural causes", the former will tend to attract more funding. 4) In a word, spirituality, whether spoken of or otherwise. 5) Too many crackpots through history have tried to peddle life extension, creating guilt by association.

Mitchhhs 11y ago

I completely agree with you. Trying to find a drug that can affect the complex molecular machinery in just the right way is likely not going to work. A more likely outcome is that we will find a drug that can treat a certain age-related disease by working on these pathways.

deegles 11y ago

Sorry if I don't articulate this well. I'm very much in favor of life extension and SENS but I get the perception that it's still a "fringe" science or maybe it's not perceived as well by the broader community. Can you speculate why there isn't more money and effort being directed to this research if it has so much potential?

reasonattlm 11y ago
1) pure science changes direction very, very slowly under the best of circumstances. 2) regulation strongly constrains funding by steering it towards drug discovery. 3) people don't like being told they're doing it wrong, even when it is absolutely true. 4) the real goal of most researchers is to catalog metabolism, not to produce any way of treating aging.
JoshTriplett 11y ago
1) Lack of visibility; how many people even know this research is going on, and that it's potentially close enough to not classify as science fiction? 2) A perception as "natural", together with the naturalistic fallacy. The black plague and cancer are "natural" too, but we have no qualms eradicating them; yet for some reason, people romanticize death, especially when thinking primarily about it applying to other people rather than themselves. 3) Related to that naturalistic fallacy, aging afflicts a less sympathetic group. Given a disease that strikes down the "young and healthy", or the affliction hidden behind such thoughtless and abominable phrases as "it was their time" or "natural causes", the former will tend to attract more funding. 4) In a word, spirituality, whether spoken of or otherwise. 5) Too many crackpots through history have tried to peddle life extension, creating guilt by association.