Institute For The Future

First Round Research: From Longevity to Labyrinth

# DISCIPLINES/TOPIC:

Longevity/life extension (technology, social implications) - From Longevity to Labyrinth

 

 

# HOW DOES IT ADDRESS “TRANSFORMING BODIES AND LIFESTYLES”

Longevity affects individuals, families, countries. It falls most neatly into the bucket of "Aging, senescence, and rejuvenation".

 

The "input" is your body and cells, "processing" is the simulations and personalization based on your body, and "output" is supplement recommendations, organs, and custom food printed for you to maximize your longevity.

 

 

# EXPERTS: (Max 6)

Jeff Hall or John Schloendorn, SENS Foundation

Gabor Forgacs, Organovo

Anthony Atala, Wakefield Institute

Christine Peterson, cryonics and supplementation

 

 

# EARLY WORKING HYPOTHESIS:

 

The increasing ability to repair, regenerate, and supplement our bodies will lead to a redefinition of life goals and community support.

 

Today:

 

A select few people follow caloric restriction and/or take resveratrol and a cocktail of other supplements to maximize their longevity. Most people don't expect to live past 100. Research prizes are being awarded for extending mouse life at the Methuselah Foundation. Aubrey de Grey's ideas are still hotly contested.

 

In 10 years:

 

People will start getting lazy again - why take care of ourselves (eating healthfully, exercising regularly) if we can just replace and repair broken parts with regenerative medicine? Not having evolved to live such a long life, people will become increasingly depressed population until a new category of meaningful work is created to meet the intellectual needs of a workforce with a widening age range. Trying to live longer will not be seen as unnatural, and there will be little rebellion, because it will be so gradual that no one notices. Extreme life extension will be reserved for wealthy people who can afford 3-D organ printing, rapamycin injections, and the like, but an underground DIYBio movement will rise up to hack longevity for the masses.

 

It's a maze of undiscovered territory that we will be forced to navigate as technology for extending healthy human life becomes ubiquitous.

 

Sciences/technologies involved: regenerative medicine, prosthetics, 3-D tissue and organ printing (organovo, wakefield institute), rapamycin (immunosuppressant drug causing late-onset rejuvenation in mice), resveratrol, vitamin D3, fish oil, cryonics, DIYBio movement