WINNERS

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Aging is a disease, and this man wants to cure it.

No, this is not Rasputin.

Some of you might know this gentleman: Aubrey de Grey. He's an Englishman who has taken up the quest to annihilate age-related diseases. Don't let him catch you calling it immortality - a claim that many journalists love to bandy about when referring to de Grey. Immortality is the necessary endpoint of his quest, but increased health into old age is the real subject. He aims to rally biologists, gerontologists, and geneticists to tackle aging on a cellular level. To that end, the Methuselah foundation (named after the biblical character) has created a contest to substantially increase the lifespan of mice.

Recently de Grey's group has put up a new contest - one that will reward the first research group to develop a fully transplantable human organ, grown from the ground up. The idea? If an organ is failing, simply swap it out for a fresh one.

There's a great wired interview available here for those of you who are interested.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting cause. Also, that man has an AMAZING beard.

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  2. LOL, I enjoyed reading the interview, dude is pretty laid back. Yeah the beard is pretty epic! Youthful and healthy are good goals to aim for. It would also be great to develop human organs that can be easily grown and fully transplantable.

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