May 07 2008 / by juldrich
Category: Business & Work Year: Beyond Rating: 16 Hot
By Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.com
The signs are all around us and yet, rather surprisingly, there
is very little public discussion of an issue that is going to have
profound moral, ethical, and political ramifications for all of
society. 
The issue of which I speak is the possibility of immortality. In
just the past few days, however, the New York Times has run an
informative article on how advances
in genomics are improving the treatment of disease; the
Economist has discussed the impressive progress
being made in the field of gene therapy, and Technology Review
covered the extraordinary advances that researchers at the
University of Minnesota are making in growing a human heart.
Last week, I discussed why the future is accelerating
and before that, I encouraged readers when thinking about the
future to “think 10X, not 10%”; and the more I
think about health care and human longeveity, the more I think both
of these lines of thought apply to this field in particular.
(cont.)
I recently came across this article entitled”The man who
will help you live for 1,000 years.” It is about Aubrey de Grey’s new book “Ending Aging.” To most people the idea of
living to 1,000 sounds absolutely crazy. But, as I explain in my
own new book, Jump the Curve, due to exponential
advances in a variety of technologies the ability to do things that
sound “impossible” today could very well become quite “doable”
tomorrow. (This is just one reason I think we all need to develop a
“future bias.”)
With this brief introduction then let me provide you 10 reasons
why you could live to 1,000 years of age.
#1: More powerful computers. Late last year, it was
announced that IBM had the world’s most powerful supercomputer.
It is capable of 1 quadrillion calculations per second. More
impressive, by 2009, IBM expects to have
a supercomputer capable of 10 quadrillion calculations per second.
Now, computer speed, in and of itself, will not directly lead to
longer lives but what these supercomputers are learning about the
human body – the brain, protein-folding, pharmacogenomics, etc. –
could very well lead to some amazing medical breakthroughs.
#2 Better Drugs. I recently stumbled across this article
entitled “So You Want to Live
Forever?” It discusses the progress that Sirtris
Pharmaceuticals (which was recently acquired by GlaxoSmithKline) is
making in testing a fountain-of-youth pill in humans. The drug may
or may not work, but if it doesn’t work there are similar drugs in
the FDA pipeline and it is not
unrealistic to think that some of those drugs might just someday be
successful at extending human life. (And with the first Baby
Boomers hitting retirement age in 2008, you can bet that there will
be a large market for any drug that keeps the “Woodstock”
generation feeling and looking young.)
#3: Implantable Organs. I have written before about
the amazing progress being made in the area of implantable
organs. Today, bladders and human skin are being grown.
Tomorrow, it is possible that kidneys and livers might be grown.
And in 10 or 15 years (perhaps sooner given the University of
Minnesota’s progress) maybe even the human heart will be able to be
artifically manufactured.
#4 Stem Cell Research: In November 2007, researchers
announced that they derived a new method for
growing stem cells that might sidestep some of the ethical
issues hindering current research. If so, advances in stem cell
research could progress at faster rate than most people generally
appreciate.
#5 Genome sequencing: This past weekend the New York
Times ran an article describing how three companies want to
make a portion of your genome available to you for less than
$1000. This is extraordinary considering that in the mid-1970’s
it cost $150 million to sequence a single gene! As the technology
continues to improve and we learn more about how genes regulate
human health scientists and researchers could easily find ways to
lengthen human longeveity.
#6: Robotic surgeries: I’ve written before about the
future of health care and I am
of the opinion that within the next decade amazing breakthroughs
will be made in the field of robotic surgeries. In fact,
researchers in South Korea are already experimenting with miniature
robots to clear people’s arteries. If effective, heart disease may
be a thing of the past. Robotics are also being used for a growing
number of other surgeries as I explained in this piece.
#7: Nanotechnology: The National Cancer Institute
has speculated that due to advances in nanotechnology cancer could
be a treatable disease as early as 2015.
#8: Advances in proteinomics and metagenomics. How the
human body operates is only imprecisely understood today. As
advances in each of the aforementioned fields progresses, however,
we will have a much better understanding of the human body and,
thus, how to treat it.
#9: Human Desire. I understand perfectly well that a vast
majority of people are terribly uncomfortable with the idea of
radical life extension. Nevertheless, there are thoughtful and
intelligent people such as Aubrey de Grey who are actively
challenging society to think differently. Rather than accepting
aging as an inevitable aspect of life, they are instead encouraging
society to view aging as a disease—something to be treated. This is
a profound paradigm shift, but is it any more profound than
Copernicus telling people 500 years ago that they were not at the
center of the universe? History has a way of demonstrating that the
future often turns out much different than most people appreciate
and that what constitutes “conventional wisdom” in one era is
laughed at and mocked by future generations. Our “acceptance” of
death might be one such issue.
#10: Evolution. Lastly, I would like to submit the idea
that mankind is destined to evolve towards radical life extension.
In 1600, the average life expectancy was 36 years. At the beginning
of the 18th century, life expectancy had inched forward to 37
years. One hundred years later it had increased to 39 years. At the
beginning of the 20th century, it was 47. In the next 100 years,
however, it increased by almost 30 years—to 77. What will the next
100 years hold? It is difficult to imagine, but it is important to
understand that society will not simply experience a rate of change
similar to the last century. Due to the accelerating rate of
progress we could very well experience the equivalent of 20,000
years of progress (as measured by the 20th century rate). Within
all of this progress, is it possible that we might find the key (or
keys) to radical life extension? I believe that the answer is
yes.
The real question then becomes: “How do we prepare ourselves and
society for this seismic change?”
Related Posts
The Future of
Health Care: Part 3 (Robotics)
The Future of Health
Care: Part 1
The Future of Health
Care: Part 2
The Coming Health Care
Revolution
The Robot Will See You
Now
Comment Thread ()
Trackbacks ()
