The longevity boom is getting ahead of the science
Billions are pouring into anti-ageing biotech, but manipulating ageing has risks we are only beginning to understand.
Basal human desires never change: to be positively unique, sexually desired, to live in luxury, to be popular, to hold power, and finally, to achieve immortality. The idea of eternal life can be found in almost every religious text, and even the world’s oldest surviving literary epic, the Epic of Gilgamesh, contains poems detailing Gilgamesh’s search for immortality after confronting the inevitability of death following the loss of his companion, Enkidu. Nearly 4,000 years later, a hot microphone caught the presidents of Russia and China discussing whether advances in medicine and biotechnology might finally bring humanity closer to that ancient ambition.
During the exchange, Russia’s Vladimir Putin spoke about advances in organ transplantation, while China’s Xi Jinping seemed cautiously optimistic, citing predictions that humans would be able to live up to 150 years of age this century. Russia has reportedly directed billions of dollars’ worth of funding towards organ transplantation research and regenerative medicine.
In an era where genetic engineering and biological manipulation are possible, where actual artificial intelligence exists and space travel is a reality, how close are we to extending the human lifespan, and what is the science behind it?
This has something to do with the recent boom in the AI industry in general, and the fantastic financial success of obesity drugs in the pharmaceutical world. There is a certain feeling that we are getting closer to breakthroughs in biology. Ageing is something that is literally experienced by every human being, and we are in an era where ageing populations are predicted to become larger burdens on their economies. There is no better market than this. If a breakthrough happens in the treatment of ageing, the profits will be more than enormous, and investors want to be there when it happens.