Wired magazine has published an article about John Sperling.
The anti-aging movement attracts all sorts of philanthropists interested in life extension and transhumanism. But Sperling gives different. While others are messianic about immortality, Sperling remains a pragmatist. He wants to see results now - and if those results are base hits rather than home runs, so be it. He's told his staff that everything he funds should have a scientific or economic payoff within five years.
Three billion dollars will buy a lot of results.
A recent press release from an Italian molecular biology lab caught my attention. It announced progress on using stem cells to regenerate damaged muscle tissue in aging mice and animals with a form of muscular dystrophy whose muscles are undergoing steady deterioration.
Rome, February 4, 2004 - Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Rome "La Sapienza" have found a way to restore some of the "regenerative" ability of tissues, which happens naturally in animals at the embryonic stage of development, but is lost shortly after birth. The scientists' work, published this week in PNAS, gives new insight into how stem cells can be mobilized across the body, and how they take on specialized functions in tissue."Many labs have reported the integration of stem cells into various types of tissues, but on a small scale," says Prof. Nadia Rosenthal, Coordinator of EMBL's Mouse Programme in Monterotondo, Italy. "This is the first study to show that stem cells can be mobilized to achieve a major regeneration of damaged tissue."
And finally, staying on the life extension theme, I have learned that the February 7 issue on New Scientist will include an article about exposing cells noninvasively to an extremely powerful electric field for nanoseconds that might be used to treat cancer, speed up healing or tackle obesity. The electrical "nanopulses" can be precisely focused and avoid doing damage to surrounding cells.
