Venki Ramakrishnan

For example, they've done some sort of cellular reprogramming in mice, and they found that by some criteria, the mice look younger.

They have younger fur.

They have biomarkers that they measure which suggest that they've actually stopped aging or aged or become younger.

But no one knows

how long this is going to last.

No one knows about the long-term safety.

And one of the things about us is the brain.

No one has shown that we can regenerate tissues in the brain, because the brain doesn't regenerate very well.

Most of our neurons don't turn over.

So there's promise there.

but we're a long way from the kind of breakthrough that will say, okay, we can sort of rejuvenate someone.

Great question.

And that's because most of the what I call the rational side of the aging community is not about living longer.

It's if we understand the causes of aging, we might be able to do something that will allow us to live healthier lives.

Why should you think that aging is the thing to tackle?

Well, take almost every disease that's a major risk factor today.

For example, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, like Alzheimer's.

all of those diseases are directly correlated with aging the older you are the greater your risk for getting one of these diseases so a lot of people in the biology community have asked wait a minute if aging is increasing the risk of each of these completely different diseases

maybe we should be tackling aging maybe we should be understanding the causes of aging to try to see if we can slow it down to the point where you're protected against some of these uh horrible debilitating diseases of old age

There's a debate about whether doing so will actually extend our lives or whether it means that we will simply live a bigger fraction of our lives more healthily and then suddenly have a system-wide collapse and die.