Aubrey De Grey - chief science officer and co-founder of the SENS Foundation HARDtalk

buildings. You are up`to`date. Now it is time

for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen

Sackur. Imagine life without ageing. You could live for hundreds of years

with the mental and physical attributes of your 25`year`old self.

Would you be tempted? My guest today is a scientist and futurologist who

believes it is a proposition that 21st century biotechnology will soon

be able to deliver. Aubrey de Grey's Californian research foundation is

spending millions of dollars in a bid to conquer the ageing process.

Is his vision inspiring, daft, or downright dangerous?

Aubrey de Grey, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you for having me on the show.

I guess I have always instinctively assumed that ageing is natural, that

it is part of the evolutionary process. Am I wrong? You're

absolutely wrong. First of all, I think it's very important for us all

to understand that the word natural must be qualified in its use. All of

technology is about humanity manipulating nature for its own

ends. Whether it is or the wheel or antibiotics or anything, what we are

doing is taking what is natural and saying that is not good enough, and

fixing it. It would be unnatural for us not to do that, to leave

something that is bad, ill health or old age, and not fix it. And when it

comes to that part of the evolutionary process, am I wrong

about that as well? You have birth, you go through life, you reproduce,

you age, and you die. In a sense, you are wrong about that as well. It

turns out that even though originally when people started to

think about evolution in the 19th century, they said that maybe ageing

exists in order to let natural selection work. People in the 1950s

though began to realise that no, that could not be true, because

hardly any organisms in the wild live long enough to actually exhibit

much of a functional decline during ageing. They get eaten or starve to

death, or they freeze to death, before they have any real symptoms

of the sort we might see in captivity today. Alright, so let's

look at a dictionary definition of disease. Because I am very struck

with this word. You have basically for a long time now insisted that

ageing should be regarded as a disease. My dictionary says that

disease is illness, sickness, ailment, disordered or incorrectly

functioning system of the body resulting from genetic or

developmental errors, infections, et cetera. That does not seem to meet

to fit the ageing idea. They put 'et cetera' in for a reason. I don't

like to call ageing disease. That is slightly inaccurate. What I like to

say is slightly more generous, and say it is a medical condition. In

other words, it is something that has the potential in the end to be

treated by, or prevented, or even reversed, by medicine. That even

bigger concept, reversed. You are saying that people who have aged can

in some way have that reversed. That is an understatement. The real

genesis of what the SENS Foundation does was what I realised in 2000.

This is your California`based foundation committing millions of

research dollars to this idea that ageing can be combated, and as you

say, reversed. Correct. So the big genesis for this work was when I

realised that actually reversing ageing, taking someone who already

has some of the symptoms of old age and genuinely rejuvenating them so

their biological age is like young adulthood, that might actually be

technologically easier than messing around with the way the body works,

so as to slow down ageing, which had been historically the focus of

people who tried to stem ageing. Is this a question then of replacing

parts? I know there is this analogy used of the car, when you say that

frankly, any car can be kept running forever if you constantly replace

worn parts and components. Is that what your theory is for the human

body? That we simply undertake replacement therapy, as you need to?

In a way. We must remember that whether a particular thing is

replacement, or whether it is repaired, is kind of a matter of

definition with regard to what scale you're looking at. For example, if

you replace the engine of a car, then you are repairing a car. If you

replace the spark plug, you are repairing the engine. And in the

same way, in the human body, we typically deal with replacement at

the microscopic level, the cellular, molecular level, which would

constitute repair at a higher scale. Regarding the whole body. What is it

about where science is today, or has been for the last decade, that makes

you, unlike so very many scientists, confident that this notion of

reversing the ageing process is now within our reach? There is no single

answer to that question. In fact that is precisely why it took so

long for anyone to make the realisation that this might be a

feasible way to go. What I did in 2000, which has led to all the work

we have done since, was to bring together a lot of different strands

that had not previously been talking to each other, and in most of which,

had not even been developed for the purposes of combating ageing, but

rather for other purposes within biology, sometimes not even medical

purposes. And I was able to see that by putting all these things

together, we could actually develop a comprehensive plan, a

comprehensive panel of interventions that should be able to be developed

within the foreseeable future, which would cover all the bases of ageing.

Should be, you say ` in the end, this is a leap of faith. There is no

body of research, no evidence you can point me towards, which shows

that your proposition, your fundamental idea, is based in

scientific fact. You're making a very good point there, because

people often make this mistake of conflating science with technology.

All pioneering technology consists of leaps of faith, and so it should.

What one is doing is taking what is already known, what we can already

do, and putting pieces together to form a new concept that is greater

than the sum of its parts. That is what all pioneering technology is

about. You say to take what is already known. Let me quote some...

I would not pretend to be a fully qualified scientist, or in any way a

scientist. But I read what they say, esteemed Stanford scientist Walter

Bortz, who you have debated with in the past about the merits of your

ideas, quotes very basic scientific law. He says the second law of

thermodynamics still rules. It is the basics of energy, matter, and

time. There is not and will not be a perpetual motion machine. We and

everything else wear out. And physical immortality is nothing but

a fantasy. Yes. And this kind of makes my point about scientists

thinking they know what they're talking about, when actually they

only know part of what they are talking about. Example, he has

absolutely no answer to the very simple question, which is as

follows: if it is true that the second law of thermodynamics

controls things, and essentially unidirectionally increases our

disorder, then how can babies be born? I'm struggling with that. The

point is that babies come from parents that have accumulated damage

of ageing to some extent, and yet they do not have that damage. They

have the same level of damage from ageing that their parents had when

they were born. Somehow there is a way for life, to put it in

thermodynamic terms, to export entropy. And the only reason we live

as long as we do is because we are so good at exporting entropy. And

further than that, medicine allows us to export entropy even more than

we ourselves do. In exactly the same way that a car mechanic can remove

entropy from a car and therefore keep it going indefinitely,

similarly, we should, with medical technology in the foreseeable

future, be able to do the same to the machine that we call the human

body. As you have pointed out, everyone gets back to cars, but as

you have pointed out, if a car's engine fails, the entire engine can

be taken out and a new one put in. If my brain fails, there is no way

that I can have a brain transplant and remain Stephen Sackur, and have

a new brain, someone else's brain. This brings us back to the

distinction between replacement and repair. If an engine fails, it can

be repaired in some cases by replacing components of the engine.

Similarly as the brain goes downhill, we have the option of

replacing individual cells that have gone missing, or removing waste

products that accumulate, and so on, without actually replacing the whole

brain at all. Which indeed would defeat the object, as you say. Why

is it ` you explain these things in pretty straightforward and clear`cut

terms. They are straightforward. If they are, why is it that the vast

body of scientific opinion is against you? I mean, I could quote

you a heap of names who are experts in gerontology and the ageing

process, and the medicine behind all of this, who say that you are just

plain wrong. First of all, when you find these criticisms, you should

always check the dates on them. The criticism of my work was indeed

pretty universal back in the mid`2000s or so. Very much more

recently, this isn't the case, essentially. The scientific advisory

board of our foundation, people who have unambiguously put their names

and endorsement on all of this, consists of dignitaries within the

scientific community who are every bit as dominant as anyone who has

ever criticised the work. That is because, over that period of time,

we have gradually succeeded in educating our critics, and people

understand that what we're saying is not so crazy as they may

instinctively have believed at the beginning. One of the credibility

problems that you have is that, correct me if I'm wrong, but I

believe that sometime ago said that the first human being who is going

to live to be a thousand years old is already amongst us, and indeed

already middle`aged. That claim looks frankly incredible right now.

Are you sticking with it? I am sticking with it. Let me make a

slight correction, I never said that it was certain. But I think there is

at least a 50`50 chance it is true. If this person is already

middle`aged, and they will live to be a thousand, a lot has happened

very quickly. We know that the oldest human being ever on this

planet guide just short of 123. And we know that right now it seems

there is a so`called wall of death that the human species hits when

they get pretty much to be 110 or so, where people just conk out. They

die. And that doesn't seem to have changed over a very long period of

time. That's correct. But if they were 60 today, and they were

naturally going to live to 110 without any further medical

progress, that means we have 50 years to sort out what to do. We

have maybe 20 or 25 or 30 years to sort out what to do before they even

start doing significantly downhill. Because don't forget, people who

live to 110 get that way by staying unusually healthy throughout their

lives, not by staying alive for a long time in the state of health of

a typical 80`year`old. So if we take someone like that, aged 80 or 85,

they will be biologically 65 or 70 for average people. They will be the

likeliest beneficiaries of this rejuvenation technology, that we

think we have at least a 50`50 chance of putting in place within

the next 20 or 25 years. Let's get away from the pure science, and just

by way of one of your points, Professor Tom Kirkwood, who is

another of your leading critics said that your proposition was incredible

in scientific terms, given today's scientific knowledge, just last

year. So he is not someone who was commenting back in the mid`2000. But

let's not get stuck on that, let's talk about the scientific body of

opinion which is said that never mind whether Aubrey is right or

wrong, he is diverting attention from medical challenges in the here

and now which are much more important. For example, just to take

one, 1.5 million children every year die of diarrhoea. I don't know how

many million die of malaria. But these are treatable problems, which

need resources. And you are calling for significant resources to be

diverted to the proposition of eternal youth. Actually, I would not

say diverted. This is one thing. It often is in healthcare spending. In

healthcare spending, yes. But in medical research we are talking

about a much smaller amount of money than is spent on medical care.

Therefore it would be trivial to double whole of medical research

funding worldwide and have a negative, negligible impact even if

it all came out of medicine. It would negligibly reduce the amount

of spending in those areas. That is why we need to make a case for each

type of research, whether medical or any other, on its face, and not in

relative competition with other areas.

The demographics are ageing. Soon 40% of the population in Japan will

be aged over 65. What are the implications if you ensure that so

many of the people who die of ageing in the future no longer die of

ageing? The first implication of course is the good news, namely that

the problem of so many people being over the age of 65 wouldn't be a

problem anymore, because those people will be able to look after

themselves because they will be healthy. The whole idea here is to

keep people in the youthful state, so that they can continue wealth to

society. The only reason we give money to people to do nothing from

the age of 65 is because we are very sorry for them. The reason we are

sorry is because they're about to get sick and die. All these people

will be vital, vigorous, youthful? In your view, not dependent, but

working. Where would the jobs come from? This is a mistake that a lot

of people make. People look at the distant future and they consider one

particular perspective and they evaluated in the context of a

completely arbitrary assumption that nothing else is going to change. In

this case, what we have to take into account is that far before we see

any significant demographic change as a result of the medical control

of ageing, we will see the continued role of automation. The reason the

services sector exists today is because it can. Because

manufacturing and agriculture doesn't need as many people any

more. Automation began with the industrial revolution. Today we see

a clear trend in the same direction with the service sector. I want to

finish. I don't think that we are going to find a third sector.

There's only so many people you need in the entertainment industry. I

think we're going to end up very soon seriously biting the bullet of

redesigning the concept of a career. The concept of the working week and

working life, in a manner that will change your question. Let's go even

more basic and talk about resources, how to feed this population that is

frankly freed from the process of ageing and age`related death. That

means, short of wars and suicide and some diseases that are nothing to do

with ageing, most people will be living indefinitely. Therefore, the

11 billion predicted for the end of the 21st century might be

significantly higher than that. How on earth do you believe the planet

can sustain all of these people? First of all, it's important to do

the actual mathematics and figure out what would be changed without

death from ageing. The changes are very little, compared to what might

be expected. I will give you a simple statistic. Today, more than

twice as many people are born each day as people die. In other words,

if we completely eliminated death, all death, today, we could actually

succeed in getting a declining population just by halving the

birthrate. I'm not say that's going to happen, don't get me wrong, but

we have a lot of knobs to twiddle. All of this happens slowly. Remember

all of the other technological advances that seem likely to occur.

The main difficulty today that comes from overpopulation is climate

change. The reason that happens is not because of having seven billion

people here but because those people are using a lot of fossil fuels. 50

years from now, with greater use of renewable energy and nuclear fusion,

we will be able to increase the capacity of the planet. That keyword

you used, whatever, gets to the nub of the problem. You are a

futurologist who is coming out with a profound idea about ageing and the

ability of the human species to conquer it. You say that of course

it will have knock`on ramifications, massive ones, but we will come up

with a solution and it's not my responsibility to think about it. It

is and that's why I'm here. But the thing is, one has to go much further

than to say, oh dear, there might be problems, in order to justify not

fixing the problem we have today. The fact is, if we don't know

whether the solution to the problem we have today will create

insurmountable other problems... You are prepared to admit... I certainly

am prepared to admit. But your proposition about ageing could be,

frankly, a species destructive notion. I wouldn't go that far but

certainly there are problems that will be created. I don't know the

future any better than you do, so I can't be absolutely sure that we

will solve those problems that we may create as a result of solving

the problems we have today. We don't need to know that we might create

problems in this way. If we don't know, then maybe we have a moral

obligation to develop technologies so that humanity of the future have

the option of how to use it. If we say, oh dear, there might be these

problems, therefore let's not do this, then humanity of the future

won't have that option. If it turns out that they have solved or

pre`empted the problems we were worried about, then it would be

happy with our decision. I don't want to be guilty with that. You

raise such profound issues, based upon your view of where technology

is heading. Is it personally driven by a fear of death? It isn't,

actually. It's driven by a desire to make a difference, to do

humanitarian things. I have a good track record in this department.

Before I was a biologist I was a computer scientist and I worked on

artificial intelligence research. I think the progress of automation is

a good thing, relieving us of the tedium of going down mines and

serving hamburgers and so on. Only when I discovered that biologists

were scandalously neglecting the problem of ageing is when I moved

careers. You've said in the past that if I do get sick I don't want

to die. `` don't get sick. Have you thought through what that really

means? You just do not want to die? Try to find anybody who is not sick

but wants to die in the near term. That's not what you're saying. Your

entire thesis is that, in the end, short of war or being bashed on the

head at the end of the street, that we will only die if we choose to

die. Pretty much. Of course there will be... There are other ways we

could die without wanting to, like asteroid impact. There are plenty of

risks. But my feeling is that at the moment I'm healthy and mysteriously

I don't want to die any time soon. I don't think that there's a factor in

that position that comes from how long ago... Do you have children? I

don't. Would it be different if you did? If one imagines how human

societies work, if we, our generation, is to live forever

youthful, vigorous, vital, what on earth is the future for our children

and how does human society make sense when everybody remains forever

young? That's like saying how does human society make sense now, when

it's so different to how things were 300 years ago, when 40% of infants

die before the age of one. It's a different world now and it still

makes sense. I just wonder, is there a part of you that's a provocateur?

You love to stir up controversy. You have stirred up a hornets nest of

scientific controversy and also ethical controversy. Is that what

you are about? George Bernard Shaw said it best. He said "the

reasonable man adapts to his circumstances and the unreasonable

man adapts circumstances to his will, so all progress depends on the

unreasonable man". Are you playing God? I come back to my first and is

up. All technology is playing God. There's no difference between what

we do and any other type medical research. I think there is. Most

people watching this programme would decide that there is because you're

challenging something which lies at the heart of our philosophy, our

culture, our society. That is, the notion of ageing and death. I am

challenging the notion that we need to get sick when we get older. I

don't work on longevity. Any aspect of increased longevity that may

happen as a result of the work that I am doing is a side`effect. All I

work on is health. Final question and a very strange one. Do you think

you will live beyond what currently is regarded as a reasonable natural

lifespan? When do you think you will die? I'm 51 and I'm doing pretty

well for 51. I come out biologically as younger than that. I think I have

a 50`50 chance of being around in a good set of health when these

technologies come along, which means I can't add to this question. ``

can't answer. If the technology takes longer, I won't make it. If it

is quicker, I will. Right now, when you look at the work your foundation

is producing, how confident can you be of longer life going into the

centuries? For me it is around 50`50 and I don't really care. I'm not

doing it for myself, I'm doing it for humanity. Aubrey De Grey, thank

you for being on HARDtalk. Thank you.

We have been promising rain for bank holiday Monday for quite some time

and the forecast remains unchanged. It will be wet, just not for

everybody. But where the rain does fall, it will be windy as well and

quite cool. This is where the clouds are coming from, streaming out from

the Atlantic in an area of low pressure