The Quest For Immortality

Want To Live 500 Years? One Scientist Says It May Be Possible One Day

(CBS) 



But Dr. Jay Olshansky disputes de Grey's conclusions.

Dr. Olshansky studies longevity and aging at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He says de Grey’s predictions are more science fiction than science.

"Currently, life expectancy in the United States is roughly about – well, it's 80 for women, about 75 for men. They're talking about numbers that are simply way beyond comprehension," he says.

Olshanksy goes on to say that humans are simply not built to last.

"From an evolutionary perspective, we're designed to make it, to grow and develop and to reproduce, pass our genes on to the next generation, and ensure the reproductive success of our offspring," says Dr. Olshansky. "So you know, early 60s, one might argue, is where evolution has us surviving optimally. But we go well beyond that, well beyond the end of our reproductive period. So it's no surprise that we see things go wrong with these bodies when we use them beyond their warranty period. And that's exactly what we're doing."

De Grey admits his conclusions about people living to 1,000 are very extreme, "and so the natural reaction is to say, 'Well, this can't possibly be right.' But then if you look at my reasoning, how I get to those conclusions, it becomes very much harder to actually identify anything that I'm saying that is unreasonable," he says.

Would he compare such critics with those who believed that the Earth was flat and continued to believe it even when it was only theoretically proven to be round?

"I think that's a pretty good parallel, yes," says de Grey.

"I have no doubt science will make breakthroughs. But how do you develop a model or a forecast of a life expectancy based on a technology that doesn't exist?" says Olshansky.

But de Grey insists that it will exist soon enough. Our success in mapping the human genome will produce amazingly rapid strides in technology, like smart drugs designed for individuals, gene therapies to cure hereditary disease, and stem cells that rejuvenate organs like the heart and brain. And beyond that, microscopic robots that travel through our bloodstream curing what ails us.

Progress will be such that each generation will keep us one step ahead of the Grim Reaper.

"The first generation will give us maybe 30 extra years of healthy lifespan," says de Grey. "So, beneficiaries of those first therapies will still be around to benefit from improved therapies that will give them another 30 or 50 years and so on. So this is basically staying one step ahead of the problem."

But realistically, who wants to live to age 500 or 1,000?

"What I'm after is not living to 1,000. I'm after letting people avoid death for as long as they want to," he says.

And de Grey acknowledges that immortality will not be cheap. "We are talking about serious expenditure here. We are talking about expenditure in excess of what's being spent on the war in Iraq, for example."

That money will only be forthcoming when ordinary people become convinced that they have a shot at radical life extension.

"The people who are watching this probably still think about serious life extension in the same way that they think about teleportation. You know, they think it's not really foreseeable and they'll worry about it when it is," says de Grey.

That’s where the Methuselah Mouse Prize comes in. It’s a multi-million dollar contest designed by de Grey and others to spur anti-aging research. The goal is to demonstrate that radical life extension is possible by producing a so-called ‘ageless’ mouse within the next 10 years.

"And that is when the real pandemonium is going to happen because people will want to maximize their chance of making the cut," says de Grey.