-All research involved in indefinite life extension is supported by MILE -
The movement for indefinite life extension stands for the support of all viable, reasonable work that could produce indefinite life extension. With the success of MILE, there will be world support for all of the research of indefinite life extension.
There are a variety of strategies working to help create indefinite life extension that are already underway. There are the two main approaches, the evolutionary biology approach [1][2][3] and the general bio-engineering of the 7 known forms of damage approach. There are a few other comprehensive strategies that are underway. Then there are many more that could help create indefinite life extension, but are not designed as comprehensive packages that could go all the way. A few of the other comprehensive and non-comprehensive approaches that are underway include the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), approach to indefinite life extension, Cryonics, the free radical theory of aging, the reproductive-cell cycle theory and the telomerase activation approach.
Supporting new strategies is also a very important part of MILE. There are many more new potential pathways to the goal of indefinite life extension that we still have to induce and put through peer review; there may be, probably are many more strategies we can pursue. For ages and ages of time, people didn’t know what any viable, empirical pathways to indefinite life extension might be. Now that we can see in to our cells, have mapped the genetic code, work with enzymes and proteins and all the rest, we have been able to find our first few potential pathways into creating the first stages of indefinite life extension. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t many more. It doesn’t even mean that multiple pathways can’t work. We need to get every avenue on the table that could be there, and get to work pursuing them all. If a reasonable, viable new way to create indefinite life extension exists, we can’t afford to not know about it. New pathways also includes those new approaches which would fit with in other, current strategies, as new sub branches. We also support a (not yet developed) strategy to put constant pressure on searching out the possibility that there may be more than 7 forms of damage that are in the way of indefinite life extension through that approach.
We need to find them all. MILE supports finding them all, and MILE supports developing them all.
Current Strategies:
One strategy is to take aging on via its 7 known forms of cellular damage. 1 by 1. It could be approached in a few ways, like through gerontology, bio-engineering, or even AGI. As far as science can tell, there are only these 7 forms of damage that accumulate in our cells and age us to death. The SENS approach, most notably, works to develop therapies and methods for cleaning out the damage that are called: AmyloSENS, ApoptoSENS, GlycoSENS, LysoSENS, MitoSENS, OncoSENS and RepleniSENS. Many of these strategies are already underway in labs around the world,
The genetic evolutionary approach to aging works to find the combinations of genes that may allow us to live longer. Some people naturally live longer than others, some animals naturally live longer than others. Science shows that this is in our genes. By isolating these factors, through the work of those like Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, Dr. Michael West and Dr. Michael Rose, we may be able to unlock indefinite life extension.
Researchers at organizations like the Singularity Institute and Novamente are working on creating Artificial General Intelligence that can help figure out how to create indefinite life extension for us. Right now for example, computers help researchers figure out the extremely complex structural folds of proteins by crunching the data through a program called Folding at Home, FAH, (http://imminst.org/fah), and through other programs like advanced biochemical microfluidics. These kinds of programs help move through research faster. If AGI can be developed to extend concepts like these even further, and to all of the problems yet to be worked out for aging, then we have a great chance of defeating it even more quickly and cleanly. They are also working on complex problems like mapping and recording the brain, potential uploading, singularity, and creating various other aspects of indefinite life extension
People working with the free radical theory propose that free radicals are the key to unlocking the way to indefinite life extension. Free radicals are highly reactive atoms with single unpaired electrons in their outer shells that wreak havoc on our bodies over time, aiding in our biology aging us to death. However, this seems like just one part of it. This is for example just one part of the SENS plan. If we are going to defeat aging we need plans that can kill the beast and not just poke or injure it.
People like Dr. William Anderson at Sierra Sciences work directly on telomeres. They think it may not just be one of the keys, but thee key. Telomeres are the tips of our chromosomes, and every time our cells divide, these tips get shorter, until eventually it causes problems for our bodies, aka pathology and aging. They work to find an activator for telemorase, which is a key enzyme that aids in the lengthening of telomeres. If they can work out the kinks, then it may prove to be the pathway to indefinite life extension.
Those are some of the other main approaches that are being worked on, in brief. You can read about more of them in the aging theories sub forum at longecity.org.
New Strategies:
One strategy that MILE supports working to add new sub strategies to, is more ways to clean out the damage under the 7 bio-engineering categories that SENS outlines. For example, an organization independent of the main bio-engineering strategy SENS, the Life Extension Foundation, among others, have helped to fund the work of researcher Dr. Zheng Cui of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Using a generalized principle that he discovered, Dr. Cui researches the use of granualcytes in the destruction of one of those 7 known forms of damage, death resistant cells. As another example, through the work of a research team led by Dr. Jans Gruber and supported by Longecity, a way is being sought to move chemical messengers across the blood brain barrier. If successful this will provide another potential delivery method for such therapies, in addition to its microglial cell replenishment target goals, which help to discourage extracellular tangles. These are just a few of the countless examples that are already underway.
We might figure out a new, non-engaged, and potentially never before thought-of approaches. For instance, we may figure out an approach to take so as to not let metabolism lay this damage down in the first place. You never know what we will find. Dendrimers might be able to carry stem cells, target, then digest damaged cells and leave stem cells behind to fill the spot back in. MILE supports the creation of these new strategies through current programs and those that are yet to be created.
Current programs that spur innovation include those like the M Prize, which encourages researchers to extend the lifespan of a mouse in whatever reasonable way they can find to do it. Another is SENS Academic Initiative, which does things like provide resources for undergraduates in the field. A third example is the Singularity University, which helps to train prospective students in this new and highly innovative field. In other words, that is, any person, project, organization or program that support or are conducive to the proliferation of potential new strategies that could pass peer review and get into workshops and laboratories around the world.
This movement for indefinite life extension works to help gain the maximum percentage of world support that there can be, to expedition the facilitation of every workable avenue that could create indefinite life extension. Every avenue is pursued until the goal is achieved or we die out in the “blizzard.” MILE will not rest until we reach indefinite life extension.
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Edited by brokenportal, 29 October 2011 - 05:53 AM.
