Why are these very wealthy players investing in the field of research on aging as they did yesterday on digital technology? Antonio Regalado, journalist at MIT Technology Review and specialized in biomedicine, has his own idea. “Among the super rich, there is a long tradition of seeking immortality. The pharaohs built their pyramids, American philanthropists created foundations, buildings in their name so that they could be remembered. Today, time has become the most important thing: for all their money, they can’t have much more. So they want to live to be 120 or even more.”
However, behind the shiny slogans, millions of dollars and promises, research into reverse-aging would be less a matter of quantity than of quality.
Measuring the age of your organs
Another tech boss has made a name for himself on the internet in his search for eternal youth. Bryan Johnson and his Blueprint Project, with which he aims to “reduce his epigenetic age”. Using this program, the Los Angeles-based businessman regularly measures more than 70 organs in his body, for each of which he attempts to reverse the biological age. With a team of around twenty scientists at his disposal as his main allies, daily intake of molecules, physical exercise, and a draconian diet.
At 47 (biological age), Bryan Johnson boasts of possessing organs, most of them, the age of a much younger person. “My heart is 26 years old, my nervous system is 30 years old, I have VO2 max [quantité maximale d’oxygène que l’organisme peut utiliser par unité de temps pour fournir un effort physique] of an 18-year-old elite athlete, he says. My left ear is 64 years old because I used to shoot guns when I was a kid. My age is made up of the biological age of my different organs. I measure them all the time.”
In reality, these results only reflect a tiny fraction of a person’s biological age. And the program followed by Bryan Johnson seems difficult to duplicate, even if he argues that his objective is to “democratize longevity.” Moreover, the entrepreneur offers some of his favorite products via his site. To drink the same olive oil as him, it will cost you 70 francs for two bottles.
The biggest risk factor
Martin Borch Jensen is a biologist and specialist in aging. He became interested in this question after reading Camus or Kierkegaard and wondering about the meaning of life. Based in San Francisco, he runs Gordian Biotechnology, the company he co-founded which tests anti-aging therapies. The scientist believes that aging is generally spoken poorly to the general public. “The things that Bryan Johnson advocates are good for your health, we know that. Exercising, eating healthily… Still, he pushes things to the extreme. THE reverse-aging “What we are working on is not so much knowing how long we could live, but how we are going to live to an old age, how to fight against the state of health which deteriorates over the years.”
These are the same issues that drive Lorna Harries. She is a professor and researcher in molecular genetics at the University of Exeter, England, and works in particular on how genes change with age. “What are the genes responsible for unhealthy aging? My goal is not to increase the life expectancy of a small group of people who could afford an army of researchers. Research must make it possible to increase the healthy life of the entire population, because for most chronic diseases, diabetes, cancer, dementia, aging is the greatest risk factor.
Poor relation of research
The image of the Californian tech billionaire and his scientists able to give him eternal life is sexy. But the reality of research against aging is more prosaic. Vittorio Sebastiano has made some spectacular statements in the past, such as when he asserted: “From a biological point of view, I don’t think immortality is impossible.” Reached by telephone, the researcher at the Stanford Medical School in California is more nuanced today. “I am a biologist specializing in reproduction, what I say is that it is possible to rejuvenate cells by erasing the information responsible for their aging. This is what I am working on with my laboratory.” Treatments in dermatology, immunology, and more recently in ophthalmology are under development. The researcher hopes to launch clinical trials next year.
All the scientists contacted complain that the theme of aging is the poor relation of medical research. So, they defend their parish as best they can. Lorna Harries and Vittorio Sebastiano also launched their businesses in order to raise funds and support their work. Because if foundations against cancer or other chronic diseases regularly emerge, these scientists see fewer opportunities regarding aging. “We are less interested in old age because we think it is inevitable,” says biologist Martin Borch Jensen. In the 1990s, experiments allowed worms to live twice as long. Today, we know that aging genes can be modified. We are making progress.”
Beware of charlatans
A sign that aging is of more interest across the Atlantic than before: in 2022, the Biden administration created the US Advanced Projects Agency for Health, in order to contribute to innovative research projects. This health agency supports in particular the biologist Jean Hébert, and his project consisting of replacing brain tissue with younger tissue. For Lorna Harries, the fact that billionaires are interested in reverse-aging has at least one merit: “People are talking about it more and more, but now the money must be directed to where it will be truly useful to the greatest number of people.”
Vittorio Sebastiano also warns against false promises, sparked in particular by “private money” invested in the various companies labeled reverse-aging. “There are also a lot of charlatans, people who pretend to be scientists, but who in reality want to sell you a product that doesn’t exist. We must learn to think about this theme in a multidimensional way. The important thing is to maintain our scientific rigor, the subject here is not immortality.”
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