| Nearly
all scientists who study the biology of aging agree that we will someday be
able to substantially slow down the aging process, extending our productive,
youthful lives. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is perhaps the most bullish of all such
researchers. As has been reported in media outlets ranging from 60
Minutes to The New York Times, Dr. de Grey believes that the
key biomedical technology required to eliminate aging-derived debilitation
and death entirely―technology that would not only slow but
periodically reverse age-related physiological decay, leaving us
biologically young into an indefinite future―is now within reach.
In Ending Aging, Dr. de Grey and his research assistant Michael Rae
describe the details of this biotechnology. They explain 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, this
damage can periodically be repaired, leading to indefinite extension of the
machine's fully functional lifetime, just as is routinely done with classic
cars. We already know what types of damage accumulate in the human body, and
we are moving rapidly toward the comprehensive development of technologies to
remove that -damage. By demystifying aging and its postponement for the
nonspecialist reader, de Grey and Rae systematically dismantle the fatalist
presumption that aging will forever defeat the efforts of medical science. |
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