Engineering an End to Aging Thursday, May 22 2008 

I’ve contributed a short, 5-page piece on life extension to the Immortality Institute, the non-profit I co-founded in 2002, and for which I currently serve as an advisor. The piece, titled “Engineering an End to Aging”, is currently being highlighted.

Check it out, and let me know if there’s any way it might be improved or modified.

Aging sucks! Let’s end this terrible disease, and let people live as long as they desire.

I think our society will become much more serious about minimizing accidents and war when we’ve cured the sources of senescence. No, not to some silly dystopic extreme, but to a level where fatal accidents are at least a hundred times rarer than today (like they are a hundred times rarer today than in Medieval times). For instance, robots could take up dangerous manual labor, cars could be driven by redundant, co-ordinating and adaptive software systems, houses built so strong that they don’t collapse from wind or earthquakes, etc.

Methuselah Foundation: Early 2008 Developments Monday, May 19 2008 

1-hr video: Aubrey de Grey presents at the Bay Area transhumanist meetup on recent developments at the Methuselah Foundation. Filmed on February 6 — about three months ago.

What would you do if someone gave you millions of dollars to defeat aging? That is the question Aubrey de Grey has to answer, because for him it recently became reality.

Via Future Current.

Aging 2008 Press Release Monday, May 19 2008 

Let’s go big, folks! Everyone should be blogging about this, even if you can’t go. This is our chance to make a huge splash with Hollywood and the national/local media. Journalists, start asking your bosses now if you can cover this. We’ll see you there!

The Marketwire release is here.

Methuselah Foundation Announces Aging 2008 at UCLA

Have You Ever Dreamed of Climbing Mt. Everest — on Your 125th Birthday?

LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwire - May 19, 2008) - On Friday, June 27th, leading scientists and thinkers in stem cell research and regenerative medicine will gather in Los Angeles at UCLA for Aging 2008 to explain how their work can combat human aging, and the sociological implications of developing rejuvenation therapies.

Aging 2008 is free, with advance registration required at http://www.mfoundation.org/Aging2008/.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, chairman and chief science officer of the Methuselah Foundation, said, “Our organization has raised over $10 million to crack open the logjams in longevity science. With the two-armed strategy of direct investments into key research projects, and a competitive prize to spur on competing scientists’ race to break rejuvenation and longevity records in lab mice, the Foundation is actively accelerating the drive toward a future free of age-related degeneration.” The Methuselah Foundation has been covered by “60 Minutes,” Popular Science, The Wall Street Journal, and other top-flight media outlets.

The State of California is a frontrunner in regenerative medicine and stem cell research. On November 2, 2004, more than seven million Californians voted to pass Proposition 71, establishing the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and allocating $3 billion over ten years to fund stem cell research. Proposition 71 was a rare instance of voters directly authorizing funding for scientific research.

The speakers at Aging 2008 will argue that the near-term consequences of intense research into regenerative medicine could be the development of therapies that extend healthy human life by decades, even if the therapies are applied in middle age. Peter Thiel, president of Clarium Capital, initial investor in Facebook, and lead sponsor of Aging 2008, said, “The time has come to challenge the inevitability of aging. This forum will provide an excellent opportunity to look at the scientific barriers that must be overcome to substantially extend healthy human life, as well as the sociological implications of doing so.”

Aging 2008 also serves as the free opening session for the technically focused Understanding Aging Conference, which will run at UCLA on June 28th and 29th.

What: Aging: The Disease, The Cure, The Implications, hosted by Methuselah Foundation

When: Friday, June 27, 2008, Drinks 4pm, Presentations 5pm, Dinner 8pm

Where: Royce Hall, 405 Hilgard Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024

Who:
* Dr. Bruce Ames, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UC
Berkeley
* G. Steven Burrill, Chairman of Pharmasset and Chairman of Campaign for
Medical Research
* Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Chairman and CSO of Methuselah Foundation and author
of Ending Aging
* Dr. William Haseltine, Chairman of Haseltine Global Health
* Daniel Perry, Executive Director of Alliance for Aging Research
* Bernard Siegel, Executive Director of Genetics Policy Institute
* Dr. Gregory Stock, Director of Program on Medicine, Technology & Society
at UCLA School of Medicine
* Dr. Michael West, CEO of BioTime and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering
at UC Berkeley

About Methuselah Foundation

The Methuselah Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to extending the healthy human lifespan. Founded in 2002 by entrepreneur David Gobel and gerontologist Dr. Aubrey de Grey, the Methuselah Foundation funds two major projects: The Mprize, a multimillion dollar research prize, and SENS, a detailed engineering plan to repair aging-related damage. Learn more at http://mfoundation.org.

Media Contact: Maria Entraigues, 310-242-3660, maria@mfoundation.org

~~~

Anyone who blogs about this will get a link in the event blogroll. See other ways you can help on the volunteer page.

Aubrey de Grey on Colbert Report Thursday, May 15 2008 

Aubrey’s TED Talk 2006 Thursday, May 15 2008 

Volunteer to Help Out with Aging 2008! Thursday, May 15 2008 

If you live in the LA area, there is a volunteer meeting this Sunday to prepare for the Methuselah Foundation’s June 27th event, “Aging: The Disease, The Cure, the Implications”, also known as Aging 2008. Here is the release:

“The inaugural Los Angeles team meeting for Aging 2008 will take place on the front steps of Royce Hall, this Sunday May 18, starting at 2pm. It will last at least an hour.

The only instructions you have to get there are found here:

http://www.mfoundation.org/ADCI/

Invite any friends that can help volunteer to organize our Los Angeles based operations!”

Life extension advocates, mobilize!

David Deutsch Speaks with Aubrey De Grey About SENS Sunday, May 11 2008 


Renowned Quantum Physicist, and father of the Quantum Computer, David Deutsch (www.qubit.org) speaks with Aubrey de Grey about the scientific details and feasibility of life extension approach SENS (www.methuselahfoundation.org). Filmed in the Natural History Museum, Oxford, with kind permission of the trustees.

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