joining us from cambridge england is doctor audrey degrade he's a biomedical
gerontologist i'll be thanks for joining us
my pleasure
i've been following your work ever since the sixty minutes peace i think it was
back in two thousand six and pretty interested by and you do a lot of work
about
aging and the idea that aging is basically something that can be
controlled and that doesn't have to happen the way it's basically been
accepted for as long as humans have been honor tell me a little bit about how you
first got into this line of work
well alive
really lonesome smile yesterday's icon even think how soon that beijing was in
sometimes obviously something that was put to a lot of the bad press and
secondly uh...
potentially amenable to medical intervention
and
are a went through my childhood and the expense and the until i was about that's
a uh... really not appreciating it sold out there
was an unpopular beer and that actually most people
were much more but listed about aging
i had
completely for g_m_ to bad biodiversity
the agreed with me that this was that most important thing to work on and
brighten up some of whom were actually working on it because whenever i heard
about much progress
i never thought about that you know because averted our problem
uh... level but if we're going to be a fitful and
you know you and talk about that very much
but he'll talk about the parents are very much either so he might not really
a particularly
informative fact so i
guest liberal
epiphany for me was around the edges that say where and by virtue of
conversations with my wife is about a definitive i might be a previously
and with people are all about it for that matter
i began to appreciate that actually most biologists
did not about aging a particularly important to label it particularly
interesting
unfair of ensure they are just bad at all
uh... changing their mind about this and decided it was nothing for it but to try
and do it without them so i switched filled from computer science which was
my resume training
so sent to the average person i think the idea that aging can be controlled in
in in a very
weird way would be of ponnu idea and i know you could speak for hours about
this but to the newcomer to this type of of line of thought what's the simple
explanation that you have as to how and why engine can be controlled issues
well of course i'm certainly not saying that it can be controlled two dash
i'm saying that we of within striking distance of developing therapies which
will be able to control in the future
and because as with any new technology of any kind with the medical or other
wise we don't know how soon it's going to be before the ten million are
actually developed
i would say that the fifty percent chance of getting that within the next
twenty five years or so no water technology they were talking about uh...
essentially we can describe that in just two words it
regenerated medicine
in other words
repairing of the various types of molecular and cellular damage to
accumulate throughout life goes
side effects of normal metabolism of the normal operation of erotic
amplified effect because they can realize
but eventually harmful eventually get in the way around the top of the sermon
cause the disease and disability of old age
even though until that time because they're less abundant they are
eventually harmless what's hurting agree on syrian terrible what's that
nitty-gritty of what would a treatment like this look like in other words you
going to a medical office presumably and if you were given a liquid some kind of
injection i mean literally what would it be like
the first thing so enough of that is it's probably got kinda lost overtime
because the actual delivery of these therapies is something that can be
progress in the refund
initially for example a member of extensive amounts of surgery to replace
all organs and
as time goes on we may be able to eliminate that aspect into things purely
at the moment scopic cellular and molecular level
uh... however n about them at one time say that it's really not going to be all
that much different from the short of
why don't we
deliver medicine today
so india mention injections index is again to be a big part of it and in
general stem cell therapy today and me somewhat experimental and limited
formerly already exist is john mostly by and actions by simply preparing sold
into the right size and vending introducing them into the circulation
uh... another let's go to the right way to do what we want to do
the sign is largely true in the case of gene therapy repair d_n_a_ i typically
packaged into engineering viruses and again we enjoyed many of the blood
stream it just goes into everything celia injections of the biggest progress
but now the whole thing
you mentioned stem cell research in this
is interesting because it's something we talk about on this program quite a bit
and in the u_s_ is i'm sure you know there's a lot of resist political
resistance stem cell research for reasons typically relating to religion
are we to expect the same type of resistance and it may be different
you know on your side of the atlantic ocean than ours are we do expect similar
type of resistance this to some of the research you're doing
the situation in relation to aging is very different from the situation that
has been so prevalent in the u_s_ in relation to stem cell research
was going on in the u_s_ in relation to stem cell research is very very
circumscribed very narrowly defined in baseball about embryonic stem charles
and look for the photo has been about broadway which those cells up at the
weather created
namely the fact that creation and has involved the destruction of very early
embryos
so if one believes for religious reasons but whether the embryo that are already
human beings in real-time chat with us all in all that sort of things planned
twelve credit in the middle upset about that i did a string of embryos for
medical purposes just one would be about destroying an adult
for medical practitioners
uh...
and of course whether or not the five day old embryo did what he destroyed in
the preparation of a stem cells
is actually anything that's not something that can be answered by
scientific names for the fed notions of scientific evidence that can be traps
armored on the floor of the fire that argument
uh...
well the good thing is that
it's only a matter of the way in which the seller created in other words if we
develop a new way to create the fend for themselves but without
and at what with it is sidestepping and avoiding the polishes listening i think
that i i i i i don't know the kids are important to remember that this is a
very what has happened just a few years ago now for five years ago
according to plan developed a way straight normal adult film turned
intensive cells of the have pretty much it's not like embryonic stem cell level
at all over the world in the same thing that's about hallway should have gone
away but i went on to your original question was what got me
more directly that could be lost is
beijing going to actually go the same way and i think that's certainly there
is like to be a whole bunch of opposition troop research to control
aging has already had in fact from a whole bunch of course including
religious courses
but not going to the defense sources all resistant is going to be a little but on
the consequences of aids success in developing new therapies well-rounded
based on the methods for actually implementing
i think there will be both because i want to get to some of the consequences
you mentioned that i can completely imagine having a sense of the what we
call the religious right here in the u_s_ that they would say
half hours in the year old person which will get you know we have mentioned that
yet that's not what god wanted and of course there is no way for us to know
what god did he didn't want but i i would buy insure that we would hear that
now the consequences you were mentioning would be along the lines of the
financial overpopulation
ethical questions right and and my understanding
i think that night
i can say that the creation of any
people about years old at one of the consequences
i'm still talking here about the results all very therapy is not a perfect for
the show
kolkata mumbai pune actually work on longevity
wedel availability i will competing people healthy stopping them from
getting sick
in other words i'm finally focused on the disease and disability of old age
if we at truly want to be able to postpone indefinitely voters isn't
disability so the people stayed in
uh... truly youthful health effects
whether mentally or physically
as long as their lives then
it's very likely that the will be a consequence of arafat effect which is
that people would have a great deal longer
but that's a consequence it's not the purpose of this work
you've said in two thousand eight and more recently that you think the first
human who live up to a thousand years is is probably already alive now name
a_m_d_ fifty or sixty years old today
explain war how you came to that conclusion first of all and am i right
inferring
that suggests within the next
twenty years there will be significant developments along these lines
you've got it exactly i think that
v
chances are good perhaps fifty fifty or more that within the next i'd say twenty
five years we will develop regenerative medicine to control aging
to a degree
that's i would love to go that decisive to the gray where we are postponing the
on facts of age-related l helped by more than a year po yet in other words we are
keeping people that when he was at stake
from a health related but to about it but it's going to be it
and slow with regard to that point which i think on longevity escape velocity and
we maintain it
way will be of that helping people we will be allowing people to avoid the
help of old age however long will it
now
edges like a thousand com really had a pretty arbitrary but they come from
calculating how long people would live on average
that it maintains
throughout their life probably lived
the same risk of death each year that we see today in the western world for young
adult
if you get the radio
just a tray six today
then new york times of not going to try seven if you're living in a region
wrapped around by the western world
is very low it's around one thousand alas
so that means clearly that if you continue to have at risk of death each
year
every year however long you have been on average agomez forgive us pat that's
just federal mathematics
of course it is pretty arbitrary the prediction predictions god because
the actual risk of death will depend upon what happened in terms of other
technologies that may influence
all risk of death from causes other than aging things like accidents for example
and i think may very well trained rather rapidly as time goes on and have a major
rather more rapidly than risk of death from aging so actually they numbers are
really just completely arbitrary and that's really what every let's talk
about them very much the people go far enough to make
along with alan could we live with the fact that you have to get some kind of
schedule to sharing and again and i think the idea here is would this
fundamentally changed our outlook on life because i'm thinking if i knew that
i had the potential to instead of living i don't know
seventy to ninety years that potentially i think that i mean forget about it that
was not to say four hundred of five hundred years
i'm i'm not going to say that you know what the risk of getting hit by a car
seems like it would take away a lot more years then
and that it would look at my not going to live my life differently
i think was a lot of truth in baton indeed the first thing that i a
protected when i started thinking about all this
which was more than a decade ago now
wasn't a bad day could drive it would actually outlaws
uh... because it is due to address it kills people el nino event rather so
often
uh... but actually i a m
memos going somewhat in my thinking since that time
and my belief these days is actually about by largely just going to throw
money at these problems we're going to make whiskey activities
less risky
just by building you know things like very very safeguards
uh... bats are simply not going to kill people even in the cash flows of it in
error
uh... in everything that we can do already if we could be bothered but we
don't have to have them because at the moment only a very small minority of
people die lack of connections in the first place
the idea that absolutely in the last couple of minutes we have left can you
talk a little bit of al
the financial aspect in the sense that when these
treatments become available initially
with they'd just be available to the
those who have the most money
with baby
eat guinea-pig on people who have the least money what can we expect to happen
unquestionably therapy little bit about everybody who don't have to meet them
very very shortly after medical level to anybody and the reason for those circle
of economics
alive today is high-tech medicine which simply come you've got a lot of money on
keeping people alive in a bad set of help for a little longer than they
otherwise would and either spend more money on the many weather wise words by
like that in this case this medicine is going to pay for itself because it's
going to keep people in a good state of health where they can continue to
contribute wealth society roland of consuming wealth
and of course well by their loved ones are not going to have a lot of
productivity by what you're looking up to that frail elderly parents until
so actually going to be economically suicidal for any country not to make
these therapies available free
irrespective of the ability to patty to anyone who will not to made them even
interactive s played by the u_s_ etc you can think of but i think education is a
good precedent for
this kind of
going to work
is fascinating work doctor obligor gray is the chief science officer the sense
that addition i think so much for joining us and i look forward to
speaking to you again
my pleasure