JRE 1432 · February 26, 2020

Aubrey de Grey

sciencehealthphilosophytechnology

Who is Aubrey de Grey?

Aubrey de Grey is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation.

Topics and Timestamps

01Aubrey de Grey explains the seven pillars of aging and why he believes aging is a disease that can be treated
02SENS Research Foundation focuses on repairing cellular damage rather than slowing aging
03De Grey discusses how senescent cells accumulate and cause problems throughout the body
04The conversation covers why most gerontologists think aging is inevitable when it might not be
05De Grey explains the difference between his approach and traditional anti-aging research
06Discussion of timeline for practical therapies and why funding for longevity research is surprisingly limited
▶De Grey introduces the seven pillars of aging and explains why aging should be treated as a disease0:05:30
▶Discussion of senescent cells and why removing them could significantly impact lifespan0:18:45
▶De Grey explains the SENS Research Foundation approach versus traditional gerontology0:32:20
▶Joe and Aubrey debate whether society is ready for radical life extension0:48:10
▶De Grey discusses realistic timeline for therapies and current animal testing progress0:61:00

The Show

Aubrey de Grey sits down with Joe to talk about one of the most underrated topics in science: the fact that aging might actually be fixable. De Grey is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, and he's spent decades thinking about why we get old and what we could theoretically do about it. The conversation starts with De Grey breaking down his fundamental thesis: aging isn't some inevitable force of nature that we just have to accept. It's a disease. It's damage accumulating in our bodies over time, and damage can be repaired.

The key insight De Grey keeps pushing is that most gerontologists have this weird assumption baked into their work. They think aging is too complex to really do anything about, so they focus on slowing it down or making people healthier while they age. De Grey thinks this is backwards. He breaks down seven specific categories of cellular and molecular damage that accumulate as we age. Instead of trying to slow the whole process, his approach with SENS is to develop therapies that repair specific types of damage. Remove the damaged cells, fix the proteins, clean up the waste. It's mechanical. It's engineering.

Joe pushes back on some of this, asking reasonable questions about whether we really understand aging well enough to intervene. De Grey handles it well, acknowledging the complexity but also pointing out that we don't need to understand everything about aging to start fixing it. You don't need to understand cancer completely to develop cancer treatments. You just need to identify the damage mechanisms and figure out how to repair them.

One of the most interesting parts is when De Grey talks about senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped dividing but haven't died. They stick around and cause inflammation and tissue damage. Just removing them could potentially have massive effects on age-related disease. Some of this stuff is already being tested in animals and early human trials. The timeline for practical therapies isn't some far-off science fiction scenario anymore.

De Grey also discusses why funding for this research is so limited compared to other medical fields. Aging touches everything, which means most researchers are scattered across different specialties. There's also this philosophical block where people assume aging is natural and therefore untreatable. De Grey argues that natural doesn't mean we should accept it.

The conversation touches on the ethics of life extension, whether people would actually want to live much longer, and what would happen to society if aging was solved. De Grey doesn't shy away from these questions but keeps bringing it back to the science. First understand that it's possible, then figure out what to do with it.