On Tuesday, December 6, 2016, the Institute on Aging (IOA) welcomed Aubrey de Grey, PhD, Chief Science Officer at the SENS Research Foundation, for a Visiting Scholars Series lecture on “Rejuvenation biotechnology: Postponing ill-health via comprehensive damage repair.”
The SENS Research Foundation is a public charity doing biomedical research with a focus on developing new medicines that may be more effective than current methods in postponing the ill health of old age.
“I do think that the general concept of eliminating damage that the body does to itself is something in which the sky is the limit,” said Dr. de Grey.
He compared this idea to the example of restoring vintage cars. He explained that since we are able to keep cars going essentially forever just by periodic and comprehensive preventative maintenance, we should be able to do the same thing for the human body, ultimately maintaining people in “truly youthful health indefinitely.”
While he does recognize that the human body is much more complex, Dr. de Grey believes that “the further we get in the process of developing methods for eliminating the various types of damage that the body does to itself, the more slowly we will accumulate damage because we will only be left with the residual damage that we haven’t yet worked out how to fix.”
The Science of Aging 