Top 10 Tech
Trends Transforming Humanity! (4)
4. Progress on Extending
Human Life
I am
personally convinced that we are on the verge of significantly impacting human
longevity. At a minimum, making “100 years old the new 60,” as we say at Human
Longevity Inc.
This
year, hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into research initiatives and
companies focused on extending life.
Here
are five of the top stories from 2016 in longevity research:
a) 500-Year-Old
Shark Discovered: A Greenland shark that could have been over 500 years old
was discovered this year, making the species the longest-lived vertebrate in
the world.
b) Genetically
Reversing Aging: With an experiment that replicated stem cell-like
conditions, Salk Institute researchers made human skin cells in a dish look and
behave young again, and mice with premature aging disease were rejuvenated with
a 30% increase in lifespan. The Salk Institute expects to see this work in
human trials in less than 10 years.
c) 25%
Life Extension Based on Removal of Senescent Cells: Published in the
medical journal Nature, cell biologists Darren Baker and Jan van Deursen have
found that systematically removing a category of living, stagnant cells can
extend the life of mice by 25 percent.
d) Funding
for Anti-Aging Startups: Jeff Bezos and the Mayo Clinic-backed Anti-Aging
Startup Unity Biotechnology with $116 million. The company will focus on
medicines to slow the effects of age-related diseases by removing senescent
cells (as mentioned in the article above).
e) Young
Blood Experiments Show Promising Results for Longevity: Sakura Minami and
her colleagues at Alkahest, a company specializing in blood-derived therapies
for neurodegenerative diseases, have found that simply injecting older mice
with the plasma of young humans twice a week improved the mice’s cognitive
functions as well as their physical performance. This practice has seen a 30%
increase in lifespan, and increase in muscle tissue and cognitive function.
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