'Combating Ageing: What India and China do is crucial'

Dr Aubrey de Grey says we could just do it: avoid ageing and stay completely healthy until we die, perhaps some 1,000 years after we are born. That is well past the age of 969 that Biblical figure Methuselah lived. Grey is not a crusader in search of the elusive Methuselah gene or immortality; he is a researcher, a gerontologist, a rogue one at that, who is determined to wage a war on ageing. One of the most impassioned advocates for a longer, healthy life, he sees no difference between age-related disorders and malaria or leprosy because, according to him, they are all “diseases” that must be eliminated. A controversial biomedical gerontologist, he has often talked about a “maintenance approach” to extend healthy life by constantly curing disabilities and diseases of old age. The 47-year-old Grey’s prophet-like looks and charm leave his arguments more compelling and, maybe, convincing. The chief science officer for SENS Foundation in Cambridge, England, the non-profit charity that focuses on combating diseases of old age, says he and his organisation are committed to developing, promoting and ensuring widespread access to regenerative medicine solutions that “cure” ageing. The editor-in-chief of Rejuvenation Research tells Ullekh N.P. that countries such as India and China must make the most of the recent advances in regenerative medicine and cut monumental costs of old age. Grey, author of Ending Aging, also confesses that he dislikes being called the “prophet of immortality”. Excerpts from the interview:

Nature has designed all organisms to be born, grow, deteriorate and die. Why do you want to defy that?
For the same reason that humanity has always wanted to defy nature: to improve our quality of life. Ageing is natural, sure, but so are infectious diseases, and no one asks this question about antibiotics.

You are a controversial thinker who is sometimes dismissed as being unscientific by a few. How do you respond to that charge?

That happens less than it used to, but it has never bothered me. The thing is, my work is indeed not science — it’s technology. And those critics have been evaluating my work by the criteria of basic science, not technology.

What is the progress of your research? Any latest finding that you would like to share with us?

There is progress all the time — both in work funded by my foundation, and in work happening independently. One recent example is the identification of a new way to “edit” our DNA in whatever way we choose, using enzymes found in plants ... most gene therapy involves inserting new genes into the genome, but sometimes we want to change what is already there. That sort of gene therapy is called gene targeting. There are some natural examples of gene targeting: the best-known is adeno-associated virus, which generally inserts itself into a very specific location. But if we want to choose the location that is targeted, we need to design appropriate systems. Luckily, there are proteins (including a large family called transcription factors) that naturally bind only to specific sequences in the DNA—sequences long enough that they only occur once or a few times in the whole genome. People have used these sequences, in a variety of ways, to cause breaks in the chromosome at the location in question, which are then repaired “wrongly” using the DNA that was also introduced into the cell. The big problem is really truly customising, in a controlled way, the location that is targeted. These new enzymes are very “modular” and seem to be a better way to do that than anything previously tried.

Have your ever had the feeling that your are working towards an unworthy cause or an unattainable goal?

No. It’s unequivocally a worthy cause, because it will alleviate suffering. And it’s also unequivocally attainable: it’s only a matter of time before medicine becomes sophisticated enough to control ageing, because ageing is complex, but only finitely complex.

When did you first start worrying about ageing? When did you have that moment of understanding that ageing is a disease?

I always knew that ageing is (a) bad for you and (b) potentially amenable to medical intervention. It seems totally bizarre to me that anyone would ever question that. I didn’t worry about it until I was 30 or so, but that was only because I presumed that lots of professional biologists were worrying about it. When I discovered (to my horror) that that was not the case, I abandoned my work in artificial intelligence and switched fields.

Are you personally driven by a desire to live very long?

I wouldn’t turn it down, but it’s not the thing that drives me, no. I’m driven by the desire to save lives in general.

Have you taken into account the social/economic price of enhanced human longevity? How do you expect it to impact the world’s economy?

I have certainly taken that into account, yes. Actually, the economic impact will be hugely positive. At the moment, ageing is astronomically expensive, both in terms of the medical care for frail, elderly and diseased people, and also in terms of the more indirect loss of potential because of people not contributing wealth to society. So this will be of huge economic value to society, not a cost.

Don’t you think that while your work may benefit immigrant-dependent, work force-starved economies in the West, it is unlikely to benefit overpopulated countries that are already grappling with shortage of food grains and systemic faults in distribution. To rephrase it, how is it going to affect (hurt) poorer countries? Did you ever have the emerging economies (the Third World) in mind or was it just an affluent nations-oriented study?

The economic issues of the Third World in relation to these therapies are indeed more complex and unpredictable than those of the industrialised world. However, it is not rational to view that problem as a reason not to develop these therapies for anyone. In practice, I am optimistic that the therapies will fall in price fast enough that there won’t be a major issue.

What exactly should economies such as India and China do to make the most of this finding of yours that regenerative medicine can thwart the ageing process? What should they do so that age extension technology doesn’t hurt their economic growth?

India and China are particularly important in this process, because by the time that these therapies are developed they will be unequivocally part of the industrialised world, and of course they are the world’s most populous countries. Therefore, what they should do is to take advantage of their current “second world” status, and their associated regulatory flexibility in terms of medical research, to accelerate the development of these therapies.

Do you advise any diet for partial longevity?

No, I have no such advice. Everyone is different. I am very lucky: I can eat and drink whatever I like and I never put on any weight, for example. So the advice I give is one simple rule: pay close attention to your body, and do whatever you personally find you need to do to combat changes in your body.

How is it going to help the world or the human race if a person lives a thousand years?

I have no idea, but that’s an irrelevant question, because longevity is not my goal. My goal is to keep people truly healthy as long as they live. It happens that complete success in that goal will lead to greatly increased longevity unless we die of an asteroid impact or something, but that’s a
side-benefit.

You are seen drinking beer even while giving talks. Why? Is there more to it than meets the eye?

Nothing. No. I just like it and it gives me energy to keep me going.

They call you the prophet of immortality. How do you feel about it?

I don’t like it at all, and actually I have succeeded recently in reducing the tendency to use that sort of language in articles about me. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t work on longevity, let alone immortality. I work on keeping people healthy however long they live.