Stick around and find out

There is a good chance that humans born today could live to the age of 120. Billionaires are funding cutting-edge research. Longevity labs are breaking into cells to “teach” them to be young again. Celebrities are bio-hacking their bodies, in attempts to

pan has more than doubled, from about 32 in 1900 to 71 today, driven by improvements in health care, nutrition and sanitation.

Through it all, the maximum lifespan hasn’t changed much in centuries. The oldest a human has ever been known to live to is 122. The number of super-centenarians, or people over 110, remains very small (some estimates put this population at about 200 worldwide).

But, between our deep understanding of how genes function, and AI’s ability to assist with analysis, advanced modelling and in silico trials, there is a real chance that humans born today could routinely live to 120.

we get into how we aim to live longer, perhaps we should spend a minute or two on why.

Well, to quote Edmund Hillary, one key reason is “because it’s there”. Or, to quote an entirely different generation: You Only Live Once. The quest to live longer, maybe even “forever”, is another horizon to cross; like landing on the Moon was, or travelling to Mars is now.

But, for even the most enthusiastic advocates of longevity, lifespan isn’t the only goal. Healthspan is almost as crucial. Because the universal blessing “May you live long” is only one side of the coin. Perhaps a more cherished wish is the one succinctly encapsulated by Star Trek: “Live long and prosper.”

This gap, between living long and living with health and vitality intact, has been commercially exploited since the days of mythical heroes riding to perilous lands in search of an elixir.

Later, it would seek to be bridged by quacks collectively called snake-oil salesmen. (The original snake oil, incidentally, is an ancient Chinese palliative, made with oil from a water snake, that does ease inflammation. The term was hijacked in the 19th century, by shysters in the US with no water snakes at hand, looking to make a quick buck).

Well, the salesmen knew their solutions couldn’t work.

We now have solutions that can. is an indication of what such bio-hackingbased longevity could involve, at least in the short term.

For the longer term, more conventional, institutional research is occurring in labs around the world. The Spanish biochemist Carlos Lopez-Otin and his colleagues at University of Oviedo have been working to identify biomarkers of ageing, in research that has greatly increased our understanding of the process.

Perhaps the most promising developments come from the field of epigenetic reprogramming, which hinges on the idea that cells can be engineered, modified or otherwise trained to age differently.

This is inherently what causes ageing, they posit, in a study published in Nature Aging in December.

This is a novel reframing of ageing, as a sort of “software” glitch in the cell, one that could be fixed by rebooting and restoring the epigenetic data. What would such a data backup system look like?

How would it interact with the cell in a living human body and brain? These are the questions now being explored through trials in mice and monkeys.

Existing gene therapies are based on Japanese stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka’s pioneering work on reprogramming mature cells into young, stem cells (for which he won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, alongside British developmental biologist John Gurdon).

So far, epigenetic reprogramming has been shown to extend the lifespans of mice by 30%. It has also been shown to restore vision in both mice and monkeys. But, the therapy is complex to administer and, in some scenarios, can trigger cancer. So, alternative mechanisms of delivering these

What will it take to live a lot longer? The most promising developments in longevity studies so far have come from the field of

This is the idea that cells can be engineered, modified or otherwise trained to age differently. What does this mean?

A Harvard Medical School team has proposed the Information Theory of Aging (IToA). Cells can replenish and repair themselves, but the theory goes, leading to a gradual loss of the “information” called epigenetic data. This, they say, causes ageing.

In this theory, ageing is viewed as a sort of the cell that can be fixed by rebooting and restoring the epigenetic data.

therapies are being explored.

AI has a role here, in speeding up research efforts and helping to identify or even design promising molecules for safer delivery of therapies.

in