The roadmap to abolish aging by 2040

The roadmap to abolish aging
by 2040
Principal, Delta WisdomChair, London Futurists
David Wood
@dw2
londonfuturists.com deltawisdom.com

@dw2 Page 2longevitycryopreservationsummit.com
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain
May 25-27

@dw2 Page 4
Madrid, 25-27 Maylongevitycryopreservationsummit.com

@dw2 Page 5
Future life expectancy in 35 industrialised countries
“Projections with a Bayesian model ensemble”
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32381-9/
85.25
81.66
87.23
Assumes future trends will be
an extension of past trends!?
These predictions assume a basic
continuation of conventional medicine
S. Korea: 90.82 (83.91-98.70)
France: 88.55 (84.64-91.28)
Japan: 88.41 (84.22-92.60)
90%
confidence
limits
Published: 21 February 2017
74
83

@dw2 Page 6
Technology
Capability
Time
The future arrives in waves
Waves start slow (disappointing)
Become fast (exciting)
Eventually wave loses power
Disruption to new wave?
Progress
usually
depends
on
“insiders”
But sometimes on “outsiders” too
Positive
feedback
cycle
Rich ecosystem

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Disruption in the last 10 years

@dw2 Page 8
Smartphone
Capability
Time
Feature
phones
(phase 0)
Phase 1
smartphones
1990 2000 2010
Software
relatively
unimportant
Software
important
Software
critical
Mini-computers
Supercomputers
Phase 2
smartphones
(superphones)
“Software is eating the world”
The future arrives in waves
“Technology is eating the world”

@dw2 Page 9
“Technology
is eating the
world”
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-largest-companies-market-cap-15-years/
2001
2006
2011
2016
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5

@dw2 Page 10
2016
• "We’ve gotten into the health arena and we started looking at
wellness… that may even make the smartphone market look small” –
Tim Cook, Apple CEO
– https://www.fastcompany.com/3062090/tim-cooks-apple/playing-the-long-
game-inside-tim-cooks-apple
• “Microsoft has vowed to ‘solve the problem of cancer’ within a
decade by using ground-breaking computer science to crack the code
of diseased cells so they can be reprogrammed back to a healthy
state” (quoting Chris Bishop, Microsoft Research Cambridge)
– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/20/microsoft-will-solve-
cancer-within-10-years-by-reprogramming-dis/

@dw2 Page 11
New platform
capability
Disappointment
Further
Disappointment
Again!
Old platform
no longer
competitive
Disruptions can take a long time in gestation
Even though they may eventually seem to blossom quickly
Previous
platform
New
processes,
skills &
tools
critically
important
New platform hype
Poor usability, hard to configure
Services & apps missing or inadequate

@dw2 Page 12
2016
• “Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook founder] aim to
‘cure, prevent and manage’ all disease”
• “Couple plans to invest $3bn over next decade to help scientists
develop and utilise tools such as artificial intelligence and blood
monitors to treat illnesses”
– https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/21/mark-zuckerberg-
priscilla-chan-end-disease
• “If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is
yes” – Bill Maris, Managing Partner, Google Ventures
– https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/google-ventures-
bill-maris-investing-in-idea-of-living-to-500

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The roadmap to abolishing aging by 2040
1. The biggest, most powerful companies in the world will
put more and more effort behind healthy life extension

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Scientific method Open society
1st Industrial Revolution
Steam, mechanisation
1760…
2nd Industrial Revolution
Electricity, chemicals, mass production
1880…
3rd Industrial Revolution
Computers, electronics
1960…
4th Industrial Revolution
??? convergence
2010…
Technological
change
+120 years
+80 years
+50 years
+35 years
2045…
The
Technological
Singularity

@dw2 Page 16
BN
CI
NBIC Convergence
The 4th Industrial Revolution

@dw2 Page 17
Atoms Genes
Bits Neurons
Bio-
Tech
Nano-
Tech
Cogno-
Tech
Info-
Tech
Software
Hardware
BiologyPhysical
New
machines
New
algorithms
New
minds
New
life

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Positive feedback cycles
Tools
Machinery

@dw2 Page 19
Design,
Manufacturing
Computers

@dw2 Page 20
Software tools
(debuggers,
compilers…)
Software

@dw2 Page 21
AI tools
AI

@dw2 Page 22
“Google Researchers Are Teaching Their AI
to Build Its Own, More Powerful AI”
http://www.sciencealert.com/google-is-improving-its-artificial-intelligence-with-artificial-intelligence
AutoML “Google’s New AI Is
Better at Creating AI
Than the Company’s
Engineers”
https://futurism.com/googles-new-ai-is-better-at-creating-ai-than-the-companys-engineers/
Positive
feedback
cycle

@dw2 Page 23
People
Technology
Education
Networks
Tools
Positive
feedback
cycle
Entrepreneurs
Engineers
Scientists
EducatorsDesigners
Artificial Intelligence Deep Learning
The acceleration of technology
The acceleration of disruption

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2. The transformational technologies of the fourth industrial
revolution (NBIC) will become sufficiently mature
3. Two waves of disruptive new thinking will fundamentally
enhance healthcare

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Medical
Capability
Time
“Conventional medicine”

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Eroom’s Law Number of drugs
approved per US$B R&D
spending, halves every
9 years since 1950
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/03/08/erooms_law.php
See Chapter 6 of The Abolition of Aging
Conventional
medicine is struggling

@dw2 Page 27
Life expectancy at birth, female (Spain)
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.FE.IN?locations=ES
Progress
slowing

@dw2 Page 28http://www.grg.org/Gallery/1875Gallery.html#Jeanne_Calment
Jeanne Louise Calment, lived to 122 years 164 days: 21 Feb 1875 to 4 Aug 1997
17 100 117
http://www.grg.org/Gallery/1880Gallery.html
117, with (great)3grandson 119
Sarah DeRemer Knauss, lived to 119 years 97 days: 24 Sep 1880 to 30 Dec 1999

@dw2 Page 29https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people
Name Sex Birth date Death date Age
Place of death
or residence
1 Jeanne Calment F 21 February 1875 4 August 1997 122 years, 164 days France
2 Sarah Knauss F 24 September 1880 30 December 1999 119 years, 97 days United States
3 Lucy Hannah F 16 July 1875 21 March 1993 117 years, 248 days United States
4 Marie-Louise Meilleur F 29 August 1880 16 April 1998 117 years, 230 days Canada
5 Emma Morano F 29 November 1899 15 April 2017 117 years, 137 days Italy
6 Violet Brown F 10 March 1900 Living 117 years, 108 days Jamaica
7 Misao Okawa F 5 March 1898 1 April 2015 117 years, 27 days Japan
8 María Capovilla F 14 September 1889 27 August 2006 116 years, 347 days Ecuador
9 Nabi Tajima F 4 August 1900 Living 116 years, 326 days Japan
10 Susannah Mushatt Jones F 6 July 1899 12 May 2016 116 years, 311 days United States
11 Gertrude Weaver F 4 July 1898 6 April 2015 116 years, 276 days United States
12 Tane Ikai F 18 January 1879 12 July 1995 116 years, 175 days Japan
13 Elizabeth Bolden F 15 August 1890 11 December 2006 116 years, 118 days United States
14 Besse Cooper F 26 August 1896 4 December 2012 116 years, 100 days United States
No new entrants in top four this century!

@dw2 Page 30
Medical
Capability
Time
Focus on
individual
diseases
Delaying aging
Aging
relatively
unstudied
“Rise of geroscience”
The study of how aging makes disease more likely

@dw2 Page 31https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4691799/
Aging increases probability and impact of chronic disease

@dw2 Page 32
National Life Tables, United Kingdom, 2012-14
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep
opulationandcommunity/birthsde
athsandmarriages/lifeexpectancie
s/datasets/nationallifetablesunite
dkingdomreferencetables
c. 1/1000
at age 35
c. 1/10 at age 85
After the age of around 35,
human mortality rate
doubles every c. 8 years
– Gompertz Law (1825)
c. 1/100 at 60
c. 1/10,000 at age 10
Aging ->
Senescence ->
Mortality
Is this a fixed law of all biology? No!

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Lobster
Naked mole rat Rougheye rockfish
Organisms that don’t age:
negligible senescence
http://www.programmed-aging.org/negligible_senescence.html
Bowhead whale

@dw2 Page 34
1951 1984
negligible senescence
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/moar-bears/panda-001/
http://www.slideshare.net/redescma/biologa-y-ecologa-del-alimoche
1992
Professor George Dunnet, Aberdeen University, with “fulmar 57”, Orkney island of Eynhallow
(members of the petrel family of birds – “Britain’s version of the albatross”)
http://www.birdcare.com/bin/shownews/69

@dw2 Page 35https://medium.com/usfws/wisdom-the-laysan-albatross-7c1259c3b35a
A mother, again, at 66
“Wisdom has raised at least 30-35 chicks”
9 Dec 2016
Midway Atoll

@dw2 Page 36https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(clam)
This ocean quahog
clam, nicknamed
“Ming”, lived to the age
of 507 (1499-2006) off
the coast of Iceland

@dw2 Page 37https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine
One Great
Basin
bristlecone
pine in
eastern
California
has been
cross-dated
at 5,065
years old

@dw2 Page 38http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040119
Centenarian siblings: Helen Reichert, Irving Kahn & siblings: As children and as centenarians
Superagers

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Aging & chronic disease: Model 1
Stroke
Cancer
Heart disease
Diabetes
Pulmonary disease
HIV -> AIDS
Parkinson’s
Arthritis
Alzheimer’s
Asthma
Kidney disease
Aging
Each chronic disease has its own
trajectory, and needs its own
investigation and own treatment
Aging is particularly hard, so it
should be left to last to address
Independence

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Dr. Felipe Sierra, Director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging,
discusses the Trans-NIH GeroScience Interest Group, August 2013
http://youtu.be/xI38YRz1bbQ
Stroke
Cancer
Heart disease
Diabetes
Pulmonary disease
HIV -> AIDS
Parkinson’s
Menopause
Arthritis
Alzheimer’s
Asthma
Kidney disease
AGING
Causation

@dw2 Page 41
Dr. Felipe Sierra, Director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging,
discusses the Trans-NIH GeroScience Interest Group, August 2013
http://youtu.be/xI38YRz1bbQ
Stroke
Cancer
Heart disease
Diabetes
Pulmonary disease
HIV -> AIDS
Parkinson’s
Menopause
Arthritis
Alzheimer’s
Asthma
Kidney disease
AGING
ProteostasisAdaptation to stress
Regeneration
from stem cells
Inflammation
Macromolecular
damage
Metabolism
Epigenetics and regulatory RNA

Damage type
Cell loss, cell atrophy
Division-obsessed cells
Death-resistant cells
Mitochondrial mutations
Intracellular junk
Extracellular junk
Extracellular matrix stiffening

Damage type The maintenance approach
Cell loss, cell atrophy Cell therapy, mainly
Division-obsessed cells
Death-resistant cells Suicide genes, immune stimulation
Mitochondrial mutations Allotopic expression of 13 proteins
Intracellular junk Transgenic microbial hydrolases
Extracellular junk Phagocytosis by immune stimulation
Extracellular matrix stiffening AGE-breaking molecules/enzymes
Telomerase/ALT gene deletion plus periodic stem
cell reseeding

@dw2 Page 44
Medical
Capability
Time
Focus on
individual
diseases
Delaying aging
1980
Aging
relatively
unstudied
Lifestyle changes
Drugs
Genetics
Positive
feedback
cycle
Michael R. Rose
University of California, Irvine
Average fruit fly lifespan x4
Cynthia Kenyon
University of California, San Francisco
C. Elegans worm single gene…
x10
Nir Barzilai
Albert Einstein Medicine, NY
Metformin, 15% mortality decrease?
“TAME”
Targeting/Taming Aging
with MEtformin
$70M: 3000 people
aged 65-80
E.g. intermittent calorie restriction

@dw2 Page 45https://soundcloud.com/a16z/science-of-life-extension
Kristen Fortney
CEO, BioAge Labs
The number of drugs that have been tested
by the National Cancer Institute
on mice to try to cure mouse cancer:
Over 110,000
The number of drugs that have been tested
by the National Institute of Aging
on mice to try to address mouse aging:
30
One of the 30 was a success: Rapamycin
Mice fed Rapamycin at middle age
lived 30% longer

@dw2 Page 46
Medical
Capability
Time
Focus on
individual
diseases
Delaying aging
1980
Aging
relatively
unstudied
Lifestyle changes
Drugs
Genetics
Damage removal
2010
The Abolition of Aging
(reversal of aging)
Nanotech
3D printing
AI+Deep Learning
Stem cell therapy
2040
Rejuveneering (accelerating)
Positive
feedback
cycle
Positive
feedback
cycle
Gene engineering
Technology++
Philosophy++
Politics++

@dw2 Page 47
Timescales for rejuvenation biotech
2030s
2020s
2010s
2000s
1990s
1980s
c. 1,000,000 people
c. 100,000 people
c. 10,000 people
c. 1,000 people
c. 100 people
About 10 people working seriously on rejuveneering
2040 Affordable, comprehensive, reliable therapies in wide use
Probability of success ≈ 50% Provided society prioritises it
Athletic, healthy
120 yo’s
“120 is the new 80”
…
Cosmetics, military, sports,
food, pharma, IT industries…+ citizen scientists

@dw2 Page 48
The acceleration of rejuvenation biotech
People,
networked
Solution
building blocks
Higher levels of
education
Wikis, MOOCs,
open source
Tools &
techniques
Positive
feedback
cycleTechnological methods
Collaboration methods
Cosmetics, military, sports,
food, pharma, IT industries…
AI & Big Data
+ citizen scientists
Motivated people!
Rejuvenation
Therapies

@dw2 Page 49
The motivation for rejuvenation biotech
1. Longevity Dividend: “A stitch in time saves nine”
– Healthy people are net positive contributors to society
– Investing in rejuvenation biotech will avoid spiralling costs of
chronic diseases and end-of-life care
– Social benefits have been estimated in US (1970-2000) as
$95 trillion from $34 trillion spending on medical assets
2. Life is good! Health is good!
– “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”
– Universal Declaration of Human Rights
3. Each death is a tragedy
– Loss of knowledge (a library burns down)
– Irretrievable loss of human potential
(Loving life rather than fearing death)
See Chapter 9 of The Abolition of Aging
Economics
Kevin Murphy & Robert Topel

@dw2 Page 50
Paradigm shift
Thomas Kuhn – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
Duck? Rabbit?
Accepting
Aging,
Deterioration,
Death
Anticipating
Rejuvenation,
Vitality,
Life

@dw2 Page 51
Paradigm shift
Duck? Rabbit?
(Original source unknown)

@dw2 Page 52
Paradigm shift: cause of childbed fever
Alternative
science (?)
Diseases
caused by
“bad air”
Diseases caused
by germs,
spread by poor
hygiene
Medical
authority
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerperal_infections
Need
ventillation!
Need good
handwashing!

@dw2 Page 53
Exodus 21:20-21 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave
with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as
a direct result,
but they are not to be punished if the slave
recovers after a day or two, since the slave is
their property.”
http://www.reunionblackfamily.com/
apps/blog/show/7183511-biblical-
verses-used-by-slave-masters-to-
justify-slavery
The “accepting slavery”
paradigm

@dw2 Page 54
Rejuvenation
from
younger cells
http://www.nature.com/news/ageing-research-blood-to-blood-1.16762
“Parabiosis”
Perhaps the most
promising line of
enquiry to treat
neurodegeneration
See TED talk
by Tony
Wyss-Coray
Muscles
Liver
Pancreas
Heart
Brain

@dw2 Page 55
https://singularityhub.com/2017/05/07/drug-discovery-
ai-can-do-in-a-day-what-currently-takes-months/

@dw2 Page 56
UT-Heart 170,000 tetrahedrons
Super Computational Life Science dept
University of Tokyo (UT)
Model includes:
• Arteries, veins, and valves, as well as
the main chambers of the heart
• Variations of thickness of the heart
wall and inner structures
• Electrical activity throughout the heart
• Detailed blood flow and local energy
consumption
http://www.popsci.com/3d-heart-simulation-
predicts-how-drugs-will-affect-your-heartbeat
Successfully forecast degrees of
cardiotoxicity of 12 separate drugs

@dw2 Page 57http://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/
$100M in 2001
$10M in 2007
Halving each 2 yrs (Sanger sequencing methods)

@dw2 Page 58http://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/
$100M in 2001
$10k in 2011
$10M in 2007
Halving each 2 yrs (Sanger sequencing methods)
Halving each 5 months!
(“next gen methods”)
$1k in 2016
The acceleration
of acceleration
$100 in 2018

@dw2 Page 59
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/diagnostics/software-helps-gene-editing-tool-
crispr-live-up-to-its-hype
Illustration: Emily Cooper
“Software Helps Gene Editing Tool CRISPR Live Up to Its Hype” “New algorithms
make CRISPR as
easy as point-
and-click”

@dw2 Page 60
Vision 2025
Software updates are available for your genome
Yes
Do you want to download and install them?
Update notification
No More details…
Slide adapted from Liz Parrish, CEO BioViva
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdEyd1CZYvo
(London Futurists YouTube channel)

@dw2 Page 61
Existing operating system
• Pre-installed at your birth
• Provider: 4B years evolution
– Darwinian natural selection
– “The Blind Watchmaker”
– “Red in tooth and claw”
• Much to marvel in it
• Full of kludges
• Many fatal defects
Updated operating system
• Available for viral installation
• Provider: Intelligent Design
– previously provided: The Wheel
– The Printing Press
– Steam Engine, Powered Flight
– Electronics, Computers, Networks
– Vaccinations, Antibiotics
• Numerous enhancements…
More details…

@dw2 Page 62
2050
?!
2025
http://dw2blog.com/2014/04/16/the-future-of-healthy-longevity-life-extension/

@dw2 Page 63
2. The transformational technologies of the fourth industrial
revolution (NBIC) will become sufficiently mature
3. Two waves of disruptive new thinking will fundamentally
enhance healthcare
– Aging as the treatable root cause of disease
– The damage which constitutes aging can be undone regularly
4. The public mood will demand positive action for the
abolition of aging
5. One million rejuveneers will collaborate productively

@dw2 Page 64
Obstacles to abolishing aging by 2040
1. Social breakdown – bad politics, science disregarded,
environmental disaster, economic collapse, dark ages
2. The technical problems turn out to be harder than
expected (e.g. too hard to repair cellular damage)
– But the real cause in this case would be lack of sufficient
research effort productively applied
3. The public decides it prefers “accepting aging”
– Dislikes hype, failed promises, risks of social inequity, etc
4. No positive collaboration – too much infighting, potential
allies deterred; people decide to work on other projects
5. Noisy chaos drives out productive signal: poor filtering of
quality research obscures high calibre investigations
Philosophy++
Politics++
Tech++
Tools++

@dw2 Page 65
Social breakdown
Technical problems
Accepting aging
Too much infighting
Poor filteringNBIC tech
Mega IT companies
Disruptive new thinking (x2)
Public mood change
1M+ rejuveneers
?
50%

@dw2 Page 66
For further analysis
http://TheAbolitionOfAging.com/
“The ultimate handbook of arguments
on behalf of the arresting, reversal
and even termination of aging…
“Wood fights ‘mortalists’ as Aquinas
fought infidels”
Humanity+
vision
Probability 50%?

@dw2 Page 67
Sunday 9th July, 8pm-10pm
TEMPLE talks | Aubrey de Grey
How to Defeat Aging

@dw2 Page 68
DISCORD
Healthspan | Longevity

@dw2 Page 69http://raadfest.com

THIS EVENT IS SET UP BY
Book Your Events at Funzing.com

The roadmap to abolish aging by 2040

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