Immortality and Beyond

What it would be like if you could live for two hundred years? What about living forever? It might seem like a utopian tale, but the fact is that these days human is chasing after that!

 

Big ambition has always been there in the nature of humans. The rich of our society has always been able to buy everything but longevity. Now they are lured at it and even science has become so mature that we can certainly think of achieving something like that. At this point, ultra-rich people like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Dave Asprey, and many others are investing in this research field and even giant companies for example Google has formed Calico, an aging research company. Basically, it would be better to say that these are all about meeting up a need than an ambition and when there is such a scope, a big market with great value forms. Some believe this can be a trillion-dollar market in the future.

 

Now the question arises does biology really allow us to reach immortality? There might be a doubt for sure. But for the past few decades, biology has gained vast knowledge about life mechanisms which might direct us toward something revolutionizing. For example, in 1990s there was a discovery by the University of California in San Francisco that changing a gene you can extend the life span of a specific tiny worm, which indicates the immense possibility of controlling aging with the help of genetics. In 2012, Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent, capable of giving rise to several different cell types. These advancements may give you the vibe that we are going to be immortal one day but technically there is another important twist.

 

Have you yet thought about what would you do growing up old with a shrunk body, with vulnerable health? That would be a curse rather than an achievement. That is why scientists do more focus on health span instead of life span, improving the quality of life. It literally means hundred years old man in a twenty-year-old body. Then and only then the line- Age is just a number, will be truly justified. It is interesting, right? But how do we do it? 

There are ways to do that. The difference between an old cell and a young cell with the same DNA, the component in a cell that contains all the information of that organism, is that they regulate differently and now we know how to reprogram the old cell to be the young cell. Again, some essential components in our body run through our blood but aging these components just drop, and if we can restart the flow, the body can rejuvenate again. The practical operations have been done by some companies such as Unity Biotechnology. This company has raised more than three hundred million dollars from investors like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel. What do they do? This company focuses on a specific type of cell named the senescent cell. Cellular senescence means when the cells do not divide because of aging. Stop dividing is not the bad part, the bad part is that these cells spew out some factors/components that lead our body to age and age-related diseases. If we know the mechanism of the process, then it is very much possible to overcome the problems and Unity is doing exactly the same thing. They invent drugs that kill senescent cells and cure age-related difficulties like osteoarthritis.

 

Ai-Da The Robot Artist Draws Portrait Of Human Artist

Now suppose we have got the long cherish longevity. Are we actually happy? Let’s proceed one step further. Have you heard of 3D printing? Humanoid? Neuralink? These ideas make us think once again about the definition of living. Nowadays we have developed such a field that works on building biological body organs artificially. Also, prosthetics and robotics have developed the idea of Humanoid, human-like robots. Again, Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk, works on the human brain. They aim to interfere human brain with computer devices. This may seem insanely peculiar, but the fact is they have found intriguing results. Where will these inventions take our life? How the form of life could be? Will it be possible to shift our memory into a machine? May we completely live in a virtual world? At his point, thousands of questions can be asked and thousands more predictions can be made too. But nothing is certain yet. Only by the time, everything will be answered that is all I can say.