By Art Kunkin
In his 2007 book, “Ending Aging,” Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey says that the technology required for allowing us to be biologically young for an indefinite time is now almost fully developed. According to de Grey, this biological engineering is so close to completion that the first people who will live to 1,000 years of age may be alive today.
De Grey explains that the aging of the human body, just like the aging of man-made machines, results from an accumulation of various types of damage. As with man-made machines, such as classic automobiles, this damage can be periodically repaired, leading to indefinite extension of a fully healthy human lifespan.
De Grey breaks the aging “disease” down into seven simple factors:
- The loss of cells that we need.
- The accumulation of cells that we don’t need.
- DNA mutations inside the cell nucleus.
- DNA mutations inside the cell’s mitochondria.
- The accumulation of “junk” inside of cells.
- The accumulation of “junk” outside the cells
- The formation of cross-linked proteins outside cells.
De Grey is a noted researcher into cellular damage in mammalian bodies. He is chairman and chief science officer of The Methuselah Foundation, an organization designed to coordinate and sponsor scientific research into the disease of aging.
I became friends with de Grey at a conference his Methuselah Foundation sponsored at UCLA in Los Angles last year in 2008 and have been in touch with him by e-mail ever since. The conference itself consisted of several days of research reports from scientists throughout the world on overcoming the seven elements of aging.
In my conversations with de Grey, I have discussed my own 30 years of laboratory research into the possible truth of ancient legends about the existence of an alchemical medicine that can extend a human life indefinitely. He is skeptical of my claim that I have actually made such a Philosopher’s Stone, but that is one of the aspects of Living Longer I will be exploring later in this column.
 Art Kunkin is a well-known journalist who founded the alternative weekly newspaper, The Los Angeles Free Press. At 2 p.m. on June 6, he will make a presentation on Life Extension at the Yucca Valley Public Library, 57098 29 Palms Highway, Yucca Valley, Calif., at which he will have CDs of his own eBook, “The Secret of Immortality Finally Revealed.”
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