A Cross-Section of Recent Work in the Aging Research Community

A recently published report from last year's Biomedical Innovation for Healthy Longevity conference, held in Russia, serves as a sampling of ongoing work in the field of aging research; a wide range of views on theories of aging are represented. One thing that strikes me from a review of the topics is that few of the people involved are working on anything related to rejuvenation, or, setting aside the much-needed consideration of biomarkers of biological age, any other projects with near term practical applications likely to significantly extend life. For the most part this is a field concerned with investigation, development of drugs that produce small effects on aging, and little else. The primary thrust is to map the cellular biochemistry of aging in as great a detail as possible, one small step at a time, with a sideline in finding drug candidates that might somewhat alter that biochemistry. Insofar as fundamental research goes, this is indeed the goal of science as a whole, to achieve greater understanding of the complex systems of the natural world. It has been argued that this is not the right focus for those groups that aim for the more rapid production of effective therapies capable of greatly extending healthy life spans, however, given the present state of knowledge. Regular readers will know the argument already. The research community knows enough about the root causes of aging to strike out and build effective therapies even if the full details of the bi...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs