The First (Effectively) Immortal Person May Already Be Alive - SENS Research Foundation

Aubrey de Grey (pictured in the photo) is the co-founder of the SENS Research Foundation and is trying to bring an end to biological aging.

SENS = Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence

He thinks that too much effort is being placed on treating the symptoms of the diseases of old age and that not enough effort is being placed on actually repairing the damage that the mechanisms of old age cause.

The types of damage and the ultimate implications of this research will be the main subject of this post.

The Seven Deadly Mechanisms

The SENS Foundation believes that there are actually only seven basic types of damage due to aging and if we can repair that damage then humans will achieve an indefinite lifespan.

They also say that because there are so few major aging mechanisms that delaying aging is actually an achievable technical goal and not just a fantasy.

The seven types of major damage due to aging are:

1. Tissue atrophy.
2. Cancerous cells.
3. Mitochondrial mutations.
4. Death-resistant cells.
5. Extracellular matrix stiffening.
6. Extracellular aggregates, and
7. Intracellular aggregates.

Each one is being worked on by researchers and some successes have been achieved (a possible subject for another post).

The Goal

The belief is that within a period of 20 years or so the research will be able to extend the human lifespan by 20 - 30 years or so (i.e. from 80 years to 100 years).

Then within the following 20 years, the research will be to extend the human life span by another amount , say 50 years (i.e. the lifespan goes from 100 years to 150 years).

You see the idea, research will be able to extend the human lifespan again in an ever receding horizon so that the human lifespan keeps increasing and people never actually reach it.

The Implications

Does this mean that people will become immortal?

The short answer is no. There will always be accidents, murders, war and so on killing people off. If infectious diseases are not conquered then they do will also be a limiting factor.

The longer you live the more likely that something will get you, ... , eventually.

Does this mean that overpopulation will fill the planet up with people?

Again, the short answer is probably no.

Once people have longer to live it is anticipated that they will take their time to have children and will also likely to become very aware of environmental issues. After all, since they are going to live a long time it makes extreme sense to take of the planet.

Closing Words

This means that the first person who will live to see their 1000^th birthday may be alive today.

This lucky person's lifespan will just keep getting extended by the science (along with everyone else younger than him/her) until the time when lifespans will simply become indefinite.

If the Steemit blockchain is still going in the year 3000, then Happy 1000^th birthday to you!