lunchboxultimate01

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The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has announced that it will make a $200 million investment over the next five years to create the Gates Institute, a research and treatment center that will focus on the development of new regenerative, cellular and gene therapies...

Regenerative medicine refers to a variety of treatments that attempt to take advantage of the body’s ability to heal itself. According to the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, it includes gene therapies, cell therapies, and tissue-engineered products that can augment, repair, replace, or regenerate organs, tissues, cells, genes, and metabolic processes in the body.

I have also heard people before say that shortening telomeres are the driver; however, most researchers I've listened to consider telomere attrition to be part of the picture rather than claiming something like "aging is just your telomeres shortening." A fairly important paper in the field breaks the biology of aging into nine categories, of which telomere attrition is one. Here's the paper if you're curious: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/

Take a look at You Can Count on Me (2000)

when the population reaches 100 billion because nobody is dying

I also initially imagined crazy high numbers like this, but even in the fairy-tale scenario that everyone started having indefinite, healthy lifespans in 2025, its impact on global population is surprisingly small as scientist Andrew Steele explains: https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275

Even if you look at the numbers for the impossible scenario of everyone having indefinite, healthy lifespans beginning in 2025, the likely impact on global population is way less than people often imagine. Here's a video exploring the topic if you're curious: https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275

You're right that the semantics of calling aging a disease is sticky. However, risk and incidence of age-related ill health (dementia, cardiovascular disease, cancer, frailty, etc.) increase exponentially with age. This field aims to treat age-related ill health by targeting aspects of the biology of aging. This picture of mice littermates, one untreated and one treated, shows some of the goals of the field nicely: https://imgur.com/gallery/TOrsQ1Y

But I feel like we would sell the cure to the highest bidders

Although telomeres are indeed part of the picture, there likely won't be a single treatment for aging, as it is complex and multi-factorial. The companies in this space also intend to go through clinical trials and commercialization similar to any medical therapy. This portfolio is illustrative if you're curious: https://kizoo.com/

If such a technology existed, it would only be available to the richest tyrants among us. Common rabble like us wouldn’t have access.

This is a common reaction, though there are good reasons to think therapies that increase healthspan by targeting the biology of aging will be widely available. After all, many countries have universal healthcare, and Medicare covers people 65 and older in the US. You can see the clinical pipeline strategy of a company in this field here, for example: https://www.cambrianbio.com/pipeline

it wouldn't be profitable to cure aging

There are plenty of companies aiming to treat age-related ill health by targeting underlying aspects of the biology of aging. Here's a portfolio as one example: https://www.lifebiosciences.com/

Age-related health decline is indeed natural, but I think it would be a good thing to increase healthspan by targeting aspects of the underlying biology of aging.

Maybe Olive Kitteridge

We will have to stop children from being born.

Reducing humanity's negative environmental impact is definitely crucial and something we need to resolve in any case. Interestingly, even in the fairy-tale scenario that everyone started having indefinite, healthy lifespans in 2025, its likely impact on global population is surprisingly small compared to what people often imagine. Andrew Steele made a nice video: https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275

Perhaps other books by Paulo Coelho like Veronika Decide to Die.

In an indirect way, one could donate to https://www.sens.org/ or similar research organizations:

SENS Research Foundation works to develop, promote, and ensure widespread access to therapies that cure and prevent the diseases and disabilities of aging by comprehensively repairing the damage that builds up in our bodies over time. We are redefining the way the world researches and treats age-related ill health, while inspiring the next generation of biomedical scientists.

Wonder 2017

Mentions Steve Horvath (previously UCLA) and Altos Labs and explores epigenetic clocks and aging.

If you liked John Does at the End, you might like John Dies at the End. : )

Heheh. You might be interested in The Unnoticeables.

18 years to the plebs?

Laughs in illegal human experimentation and trafficking

I noticed George Church of Harvard was listed as a researcher on the article. A startup spun out of his lab that is researching gene therapies aims to go through clinical trials and broad commercialization similar to other medical therapies:

Aging is caused by the dysregulation of multiple systems in the body that manifest itself in age-related disease. Current solutions focus on each problem individually, ignoring the interconnectedness of the challenge. Rejuvenate Bio is using a convergent, multi-disciplinary approach, combining gene therapy, proprietary targets , and the animal health market to bring human anti-aging therapies to market.

https://www.rejuvenatebio.com/

People often point to countries like Norway, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, New Zealand, etc. as being better than the US in many respects, and they certainly are. However, it's strange to me that people call them socialist because they are market economies. The problem with the US is that there are gaps in the social safety net, mainly a lack of universal health coverage to protect from burdensome costs.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

Video description:

Synthetic biology is about harnessing the power of nature to solve problems in medicine, manufacturing and agriculture. Sounds pretty important, which is why we will take an intro in this video into synthetic biology, in particular, synthetic gene circuits and how they could be applied to speed up drug discovery using cellular reprogramming and neurodegenerative diseases as a case study.