Paypal Co-Founder Backs Anti-Aging Research Prize

Baldrson writes, "Anti-aging researchers, via The Methuselah Mouse Prize or M-Prize, are receiving an additional $3 million incentive to stop and reverse aging. Researchers win M-Prize money in increments by breaking longevity records for mice or reversing their aging. The philanthropic donation comes from Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal. Mr. Thiel has pledged to match each dollar donated to the M-Prize with his own 50 cent contributions up to $3 million." The M-Prize was created by Aubrey de Grey, a controversial biomedical gerontologist in Cambridge, England.

Heinlein had a better idea

Pay the money to people with a family history of long lifespans if they breed with other qualifiers. Even if this prize leads to mice with long lifespans it may not deliver usable insights into human ageing

Re:Heinlein had a better idea

How is this a better idea? It doesn't help me.

 

Re:Heinlein had a better idea

On a base of 1000 years of selective breeding. In another 200 years they won't be going twice as fast again. In fact most of the improvement is in training methods improvements, not in the breed.

There are natural limits. Living longer isn't at all the same thing as not aging. People who die at 120 do so having been really old people for 40 years.

Bear in mind that I have a track record here of being Mr. It Isn't Aging, You've Just Let Yourself Go; and in the 1990s my Uncle Eli grabbed the all time record for oldest licensed driver in American history (he sucessfully passed his test at 104), but after 80 years all bets are off. You degrade, not how you live or what you do.

Uncle Eli will not be applying to be tested again.

This prize is aimed at halting the degrading.

KFG

Re:

God, how I should love to have your genes.

If you had my genes you would likely be dead already. I am a mass of genetic dysfunction. Cystic Fibrosis, Celiac Disease, dyslexic, disgraphic and dyspraxic, with resultant atrophy of childhood skeletal and muscular development.

Life is hard and tenuous. Had I been born at the time of my grandparents I would have died at about two years of age. The lifespan of my ancestors does not take into account familial infant mortality.

Strangely enough I'm "strong and healthy"

Hmmmm....

How much did the guy inventing the serial to USB converter get for expanding a mouse's lifespan?

Re:

"How much did the guy inventing the serial to USB converter get for expanding a mouse's lifespan?"

... he used his prize money to buy a wireless mouse with a drastically shortened lifespan.

Re:

Rats! So you see how money corrupts the scientific community.

I can see it now.

You get to the age of 300, while still looking 21, and then someone initiates a chargeback.
Instant death.

Hate to see it happen

I am definitely buying one of those immortal mice to my daughter. That should teach her a valuable lesson about life.

Oh dear.

"Mr. Thiel has pledged to match each dollar donated to the M-Prize with his own 50 cent contributions up to $3 million."

No mention of the 3.75% service charge payable by the recipient of the prize, though.

Dawkins

I recollect reading in atleast 1 book of Richard Dawkins (not sure which), that ageing was evolutionarily inevitable.
The reason being that parasitic genes in a host that usually end up killing or harming it will quickly be removed from the gene pool. So such genes are not evolutionarily successful.
On the other hand, if their effect was triggered only after a certain number of years (when an animal has already performed its main purpose of reproduction), there is no drive for it to be removed from the gene pool. An animal with the parasite would be as successful in spreading its genes as one without it. So over the years, the early-acting bad stuff has been wiped out bit by bit by natural selection, while the latent ones have been accumulating all along.
I'm sure someone with more knowledge in this will chip in.

Re:Dawkins

It's not even the case that one need consider an aging gene as a parasitic gene. Evolution does not work on individuals but rather on populations, and for the population, it is better to have individuals eventually die off to make room for the next generation of random mutations, to try and get a better fit this time around. The population is constantly optimising. The individual is simply static throughout its lifespan.

Re:Dawkins

I recollect reading in atleast 1 book of Richard Dawkins (not sure which), that ageing was evolutionarily inevitable.

If evolution had meant us to fly it would have given us wings. It didn't, yet we do fly.

Its called engineering and its as much a result of our evolution as anything else. We already live 2 or 3 times longer than we did "in the wild" because of our engineered environment. I don't see why we couldn't go further.

Re:Dawkins

An animal with the parasite would be as successful in spreading its genes as one without it.

Who is the parasite, "me" or "my" mithochondria. It's not an easy question to answer.

The question of whether or not I am a parasite is easier to answer. Yes, yes I am. A girl has to make a living somehow.

KFG

Re:Dawkins

"f there were some mutant strain of mouse that had a dispropotionately long lifespan compared to his peers, free from the negative consequenecs of age, would (s)he not reproduce far more offspring bearing his/her genes than the others, over time?"

Short answer: No.

Look to humans: it doesn't matter how long after menopause a woman lives, she's already had all the kids she's ever going to have. She could live to be 1,000, but unless she's fertile and breeding for a longer time, she's not going to be making that big a wave in the gene pool.

Re:

"But you conclude correctly, our brains have advanced far enough that we are not shackled by our instincts. I'd just love to see if we use our brains well (for stuff like this anti-ageing thing) and don't end up blowing ourselves in the long run."

Have you ever watched a beautiful woman pass a group of smart guys on the street. I think there is still some instinct in us ;)
Yes, I get your point. Yes, I agree. Yes, I am somewhat of a pedantic bastard.

Culture of Death

Even with our "short" life spans now, people commit suicide, engage in risky sexual practices, talk on the cell phones while driving, eat fettucine alfredo, etc, etc. What indication is there for a great public need for extended lifetimes? All this will mean is more work. Retirement at 85 until you can get SS benefits? No thank you. Lifespan is pretty ok right now. We need better quality, not quantity of life.

Re:Culture of Death

I agree. I don't want to live an unnaturally long life, but I _would_ like to see the future...

So the day it's possible to cryogenically freeze people, I'm in.

Imagine being frozen for 50 years, then brought back so you could see the world for 1 year, then frozen for another 50, and so on until your natural death. You could witness the world thousands of years from now.

THAT would be great.

Organ Doaner

And of course, you will pay for the costs of freezing yourself, and maintaining the equipment, how, exactly?

More than likely, it will be much like a couple of SF stories by different authors - the section of Larry Niven's "The Long A.R.M. of Gil Hamilton" wherein a law allowing corpsicles to be thawed and broken up for parts is being considered.

However, I like a short story I read many years ago - a man has himself frozen, and is awakened. He wakes to find another, older man next to his bed. They strike up a conversation about what has changed - the young man asks about the older man's earrings, which he is informed are antenna. He is then told he is being prepped for heart surgery. "But I don't have a bad heart" the young man says. "No, but I do" says the older man.

Re:

school till 25, work till 85. retirement till sun blows up. Call me strange but that sound pretty good to me.

note: assuming sun does not blow up within the next 4 billion years.

Better idea

The guy's money is his to do as he likes, of course, but how about funding research into diseases that affect people at a young age - heart disease, obesity, depression - instead of keeping people alive longer than nature intends?

Re:Better idea

how about funding research into diseases that affect people at a young age - heart disease, obesity, depression - instead of keeping people alive longer than nature intends?

How about not criticizing people for failing to offer their charity in a way not approved by Your Holiness? I for one, would like the option of living for as long as I please to, thank you very much. Are the needs of the elderly less worthy than the needs of the young?

And while we're at it, how about not suggesting that nature "intends" anything. That's just weird and lame.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]

Painting in the attic...

The M-Prize was created by Aubrey de Grey, a controversial biomedical gerontologist in Cambridge, England.

There's a painting of his cousin, Dorian Gray [wikipedia.org] in his attic.

Re:A prize seems redundant....

Funding research motivates a single lab. Offering a prize motivates all of them.

For good or ill stupid little trophies presented at awards ceremonies is a motivator for most people. The prize looks like a lot of money, but really, compared to what you'll likely have to spend to collect it it's just a stupid little trophy.

KFG

Re:

With good care, an Alzheimer patient will live for a very long time. The cause of death is frequently not even related to the disease, it could be anything that people generally die of, or even something quite curable (an infection, a moderately benign tumor, the list goes on), but where the unability to communicate with the patient, and the patient's own unability to realize what's going on, makes it go untreated. In fact, I would argue that Alzheimer is a prime example of the situation where treatment wil