- published: 24 Nov 2011
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Life extension science, also known as anti-aging medicine, experimental gerontology, and biomedical gerontology, is the study of slowing down or reversing the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan. Some researchers in this area, and "life extensionists" or "longevists" (who wish to achieve longer lives for themselves), believe that future breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation with stem cells, molecular repair, and organ replacement (such as with artificial organs or xenotransplantations) will eventually enable humans to have indefinite lifespans (agerasia) through complete rejuvenation to a healthy youthful condition.
The sale of putative anti-aging products such as nutrition, physical fitness, skin care, hormone replacements, vitamins, supplements and herbs is a lucrative global industry, with the US market generating about $50 billion of revenue each year. Medical experts state that the use of such products has not been shown to affect the aging process, and many claims of anti-aging medicine advocates have been roundly criticized by medical experts, including the American Medical Association. However, it has not been shown that the goal of indefinite human lifespans itself is necessarily unfeasible; some animals such as lobsters and certain jellyfish do not die of old age, and an award was offered to anyone who could prove life extensionist Aubrey De Grey's hopes were 'unworthy of learned debate'; nobody won the prize. Bioethicists question the ethical ramifications of life extension.
David Ewing Duncan (born 1958) is an American journalist, author and broadcaster with a special emphasis on new discoveries and their implications in biotechnology and the life sciences; he also reports on the environment and on green technologies. He lives in San Francisco.
Duncan is a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, a workspace co-operative that also includes Po Bronson, Caroline Paul, Tom Barbash, Peter Orner, ZZ Packer, and B. Ruby Rich, among others.
Duncan writes columns for Fortune and the MIT Technology Reviews; he is the Chief Correspondent of public radio's "Biotech Nation" (part of "Tech Nation") heard in 133 countries and on NPR Talk. He also has been a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition.
He is the best-selling author of seven books, published in 20 languages. His most recent book is the bestseller Experimental Man: What one man's body reveals about his future, your health and our toxic world, based on award-winning articles he wrote for Wired and National Geographic (John Wiley & Sons).
Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey (born 20 April 1963) is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology, and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007). He is perhaps best known for his view that human beings could, in theory, live to lifespans far in excess of that which any authenticated cases have lived to today.
De Grey's research focuses on whether regenerative medicine can thwart the aging process. He works on the development of what he calls "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence" (SENS), a tissue-repair strategy intended to rejuvenate the human body and allow an indefinite lifespan. To this end, he has identified seven types of molecular and cellular damage caused by essential metabolic processes. SENS is a proposed panel of therapies designed to repair this damage.
De Grey is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the American Aging Association, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and an advisor to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He has been interviewed in recent years in a number of news sources, including CBS 60 Minutes, the BBC, The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, TED, Popular Science, The Colbert Report, Time, and the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.