“I’ve changed my mind about the use of enhancement drugs by healthy people. A year ago, if asked, I’d have been against the idea, whereas now I think there’s much to be said for it.”
Before citing further the argument of Campbell I’d like to remind the analogous problems of biotechnological life extension products targeted for healthy people in a “normal” physiologic state. Good example are the resveratrol-like but more effective sirtuin activators with a probably positive healthy lifespan extension effects developed by David Sinclair and his group at Sirtris. The trick is to market Sirtuin activators as anti-diabetes drugs, or find other registered diseases to target with the drugs. According to Mass High Tech:
“Aging is not a disease to the FDA,” Sirtris co-founder Christoph Westphal said, so Sirtris is focusing on drugs to treat ailments of old age.
With this story in our changed and future focused mind it is very promising to read for healthy life extension supporters what Campbell, a mainstream academic science representative has to say on cognitive enhancement drugs:
New cognitive enhancing drugs are being developed, officially for therapy. And the therapeutic importance — both current and potential — of such drugs is indeed significant. But manufacturers won’t turn away the significant revenues from illegal use by the healthy.
That word ‘illegal’ is the rub. Off-prescription use is illegal in the United States, at least. But that illegality reflects an official drugs culture that is highly questionable. It’s a culture in which the Food and Drugs Administration seems reluctant generally to embrace the regulation of enhancement for the healthy, though it is empowered to do so. It is also a culture that is rightly concerned about risk but wrongly founded in the idea that drugs used by healthy people are by definition a Bad Thing. That in turn reflects instinctive attitudes to do with ‘naturalness’ and ‘cheating on yourself’ that don’t stand up to rational consideration. Perhaps more to the point, they don’t stand up to behavioral consideration, as Viagra has shown.
Research and societal discussions are necessary before cognitive enhancement drugs should be made legally available for the healthy, but I now believe that that is the right direction in which to head.
Linda Powers is the managing director and co-founder of Toucan Capital Corp, a $120 million venture capital fund (SBIC) focused on seed and early-stage life science and advanced technology investments (the fund markets itself as the The Leading US Investor in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine). Out of here insights and facts presented on the SENS3 conference (I caught some of her slides with my iPhone, see below) I’d like to highlight the following ones:
- the anti-aging market today is approx. 42 billion dollars,
- the number of issued and published U.S. stem cell patents has been decreased for the first time since 2000 compared to the earlier year,
- viable business models in regenerative medicine are still missing,
- first-to-trial and -market is not always advantageous in regmed.
The Coalition to Extend Life launched today an online petition to U.S. Congress and President in order to make the technological possibility of Indefinite Life Extension a national priority and public policy goal of the United States. They ask the power people to create the 4 main conditions that will make it possible.
1. a National Institute for Life Extension be created with sufficient revenues to fund research in this area.
2. the Food and Drug Administration classify aging as a disease.
3. a National Commission be organized to study the social and economic impacts of this new reality.
4. a “Manhattan Project” to cure the terminal disease of aging.
What’s new here? Indefinite life extensioncould be addressed as an independent political issue with a bunch of supporters. If you are pro, sign the petition, if you are not, never mind but do not oppose - says the background assumption. Well, I am definitely pro, so at first I felt tempted to sign the petition, because I liked point 2 and 4 from a technological point of view. But I don’t think that at this point the address is right and it should be a mail to the U.S. Congress and President with this subject. If I were the sender of a letter with a similar content like that I would write the names of tech savvy power people, Silicon Valley big guns and venture capitalists in the address field and try to motivate them in an economical fashion. On the other hand I agree with Reason in that the right for indefinite life extension falls into the category of positive rights so it is not the best move to put it into the government’s hands. Even if this positive right can be derived from our strongest, universal, concrete human and negative right, the right for life.
To sum up: If you feel yourself tempted to sign, I encourage you to do that, although I am reluctant in this respect. The idea of this online petition can become a very useful PR tool for our very niche Issue, if a critical mass of people is reached.
My favourite signature and comment from the list: Amos Avon Cooper: “I’m almost 86 years old. I’m thankful to hear your message.”
Finally a journalist at Wired, Brandon Keim thought it’s time to check out some facts and formulate real arguments in the embryonic stem cell funding debate instead of boondoggling. He has collected good historical examples of long-term funding in drug research, which then saved many lives, like Taxol, and has enumerated fields of promising science, like proteomics, gene therapy and nanotechnology which are heavily donated with hundreds of millions of dollars by federal government, although as unproven yet as regenerative medicine based on embryonic stells. Thank you Brandon it is really wired. Link
“A favorite argument as to why the federal government should not fund embryonic stem cell research is that the science is unproven. It has not led to any cures or FDA-approved treatments. That happens to be true. But that doesn’t make it a good argument. In fact, most of the science funded by the federal government is not successful yet, since proven science doesn’t usually need funding.”
1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?
I don’t like the idea of decaying, suffering and dying. I reached the point in life at which you realize you can make a difference.The rest is just logic.
2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension?
As much as possible. I endorse the concept presently known as actuarial escape velocity (de Grey), a bridge to a bridge (Kurzweil), the step by step approach, etc. The essence of the idea has been around for longer, but it’s getting more press these days; if the next advance increases your healthy life span enough, then you will be able to benefit from the life extension granted by the advance that follows. At some point, the ability to repair the damage of aging increases more rapidly than the damage accrues - and then we are ageless.
It is an open question as to whether this process will get underway soon enough for those young today. But it certainly won’t if we fail to organize and accomplish meaningful goals. None of the science, advocacy or fundraising is particularly hard or strange; it’s “just” going to require a great deal of work, money and infrastructure to get the job done. That fact didn’t stop the cancer research advocates, and it shouldn’t stop us.
3. What is your favourite argument supporting human life extension?
That it is possible, that it harms no-one, and that some people want to do it. No action needs any further argument or justification. Read the rest of this entry »
i., Stem-cell–based products as therapeutic agents are or could be:biologic products, drugs, devices, xenotransplantationproducts, human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-basedproducts. Human cells, tissues,and cellular and tissue-based products is defined as“articles containing or consisting of human cells or tissuesthat are intended for implantation, transplantation, infusion,or transfer into a human recipient.”
ii., Donor’s risk of transmitting infectious or genetic diseases
iii., Contamination or damage risk of the cell or tissue processing: expansion or differentiation of the cells are minimalmanipulations, nonhuman fetal calf serum as possible prion source, anymal feeder cells, karyotypic =genetic stability through passages,
iv., Cell types: purity, potency, characterization, the expression pattern of identifying markers
v. In vivo safety and efficacy: experiments in animal models, tumorigenicity
Philip Campbell, the open editor-in-chief of Nature was asked by John Brockman under the cover of the 2008 Edge Annual Question: WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?
