Interview
The science that could keep us healthy in our 80s and beyond | Laura Deming
- A recent regulatory breakthrough accepting efficacy data for a canine lifespan extension drug, achieved in four years rather than five, is expected to create a significant downstream impact on the field even if that specific drug fails.
- FDA-approved life extension drugs for dogs are plausibly available as soon as 2025, with market availability of drugs explicitly labeled for lifespan extension expected within the next decade.
- Within the next decade, evidence may emerge proving that drugs can extend human life, potentially by very small amounts, though therapies will not enable survival for thousands of years or produce obvious life extensions during this specific timeframe.
- The current decade is projected to demonstrate whether lifespan extension can be scientifically proven to translate to humans within a single human lifetime.
- Over the next couple of decades, therapies are expected to provide increased agency over health and well-being for individuals aged 50 and older, enabling second careers without current physical limitations, rather than significantly doubling lifespan.
- While a thousand-year human lifespan is a potential societal outcome, no current technology is claimed capable of achieving this, and a single small molecule or protein therapy is unlikely to extend life by more than a couple of years, with a decade extension considered a remarkable achievement.
- Avoiding death from disparate causes will likely require a combination of various interventions rather than stopping individual aging processes in isolation.
- The field anticipates a convergence of empirical and engineering approaches over the coming century to enable granular reasoning about human biology, potentially accelerated by machine learning.
- Progress in biology over the next few decades might yield tools for much longer living, though this could take hundreds of years without such acceleration.
- A new generation of mission-oriented founders is expected to eventually alleviate the current talent shortage in the sector.
- Longevity research remains a critical effort because maintaining the configuration of 10 to the 27 atoms is harder than uploading, and uncertainty regarding the feasibility of consciousness transfer ensures the relevance of biological research.
- If humanity fails to address population growth, it may result in complex social issues, though technical solutions are believed capable of improving society.
- The field is just beginning to metabolize the acceptance of lifespan extension as a valid drug indication, with showing therapeutic lifespan extension in humans identified as the next major milestone.
- The speaker plans to continue longevity work due to unresolved questions about consciousness and uploading, intending to wait until being older and wiser before considering a transition.
- Relationships with death for field participants are expected to become more peaceful as they are forced to confront the concept deeply.