Dept. of Genetics, Cambridge University

Aubrey de Grey Ph.D. is a biogerontologist at the University of Cambridge, UK. He designs interventions to reverse the cellular and molecular changes that accumulate with age and reduce remaining life expectancy. He has coined the term “strategies for engineered negligible senescence” (SENS) to describe these interventions, which he argues are the only feasible way to extend human lifespan by more than a decade.  He has published widely on such technology. He is also the co-founder and chief scientist of the Methuselah Mouse Prize, a contest designed to accelerate research into effective life extension interventions by awarding prizes to researchers who extend the lifespan of mice to unprecedented lengths.

Humanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of healthy human lifespan. Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme (even indefinite) health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion—a dream beyond all others at first blush, but actually something we are better off without. In my talk I will consider whether our present caution concerning the wisdom of truly curing aging is likely to survive the increased scrutiny that it will receive in coming years as a result of biomedical advances. I will argue that it will not, because of its irreconcileability with values that are more deeply held by the large majority of humanity than any values that argue against the quest for a cure. Foremost among these is the view that humans have a right to live as long as they wish to. Once we realise this, our determination to consign human aging to history will be second only to our shame that we took so long to break out of our collective trance.