Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said, "Death is probably the invention that life is best." It purges the old and makes way for the new. However, many of the other bigwigs in Silicon Valley will not agree with the big guy who "gave way" in 2011. They seek a different path, the ultimate dream of mankind , "immortality."
On January 19, Altos Labs, the world's most important anti-aging company, finally announced the establishment of the company, determined to "black" off the aging process, seek to regain youth, prolong people's healthy life, and push back the end line of life by 50 years.
This "richest start-up in history" not only received $3 billion in start-up funding alone, but also received "unlimited flow" financial support from top billionaires such as Bezos, as well as the world's top scientists, including Nobel Laureates. Is there any hope for human beings to "live forever"?
There are people with money, and the world's most bullish anti-aging enterprises have come out
Proponents of the venture include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Russia's top billionaire Yuri Milner, and The world's top scientist, Hal Barron, as CEO. Baron was previously chief scientific officer at British pharmaceutical giant GSK, earning more than its CEO annually, at £8.2 million. Baron joined the division as committee members or advisers to a range of top scientists, including Nobel laureates.
The division's anti-aging research is based on breakthroughs in two areas, including the human "integrated stress response" (ISR) pathway that causes cellular damage and the research results of Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka discovered that by adding four proteins known as "Yamanaka factors" to cells, cells could return to a younger, more adaptive form, known as "embryonic stem cells." The procedure is likened to restoring an electronic device to factory settings.
According to reports, Shinya Yamanaka became an adviser to the division. Spanish scientist Manuel Serrano has joined the division and will be stationed in Oxford, the key stem cell research capital for anti-aging science. Also joining the division was the Spanish biologist Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte. Belmont believes that with stem cell therapy, the current average life expectancy of humans of about 80 years can be extended by about 50 years, that is, to 130 years.
In this way, Altos Labs has the "unlimited flow" of financial support from the top rich on the one hand, and the world's top scientists on the other hand, and the goal of "immortality" of mankind seems to have become closer than ever.
Can Bezos "regenerate": technology has bottlenecks, ethics are mired
For those who already have it all, money is just a number, and it's understandable that they want to postpone a frightening death. In addition to Bezos, Silicon Valley's bigwigs who support anti-aging research include Facebook founder Zach Burke, Google founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin. British billionaire Jim Mellon simply started his own business "Juvenescence" that tried to prolong his life.
Bezos is also reportedly supporting another company that works on anti-aging drugs, Unity Biotechnology. The drugs studied by the division will remove those "zombie cells" in the body that are related to Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes and so on.
Still, some argue that the investments of these billionaires are based on an arrogant corollary that "aging is nothing more than a disease that can be cured by spending enough money." Critics argue that the current research is also based on a fundamental misconception that the human body is like a machine and is "scrapped" in a similar way. They argue that aging cannot be controlled, that death is inevitable, and that human evolution has focused on human growth and reproductive potential rather than repairing our DNA.
In addition, there are also huge ethical problems with "immortality" or "eternal youth". In addition to the frightening problem that the population will continue to grow on the planet, any breakthrough research will first benefit the rich and powerful. Do people want a world where rulers are always in power, and the rich survive and get richer? For example, do people want Bezos to have another life?
But scientists at the top of the pyramid in the field say their research will not only help people like Bezos and Zuckerberg live longer, but also change and prolong the lives of millions of people, helping them defeat aging-related diseases.
Red Star News reporter Lin Rong
Edited by Zhang Xun
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