Pages

Sunday 6 October 2013

TIME Feature: CSO Aubrey de Grey on Google's Newly Launched Anti-Aging Initiative

reposted from: http://www.sens.org/outreach/outreach-blog/time-feature-cso-aubrey-de-grey-googles-newly-launched-anti-aging-initiative

crabsallover highlightskey pointscomments / links.

Posted by Desiree Dudley on September 18, 2013 | Outreach

In today's TIME Tech Exclusive Google vs. Death, Larry Page announced Calico, a new Google firm focusing on the challenges of healthcare, aging and associated diseases.
"Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives," said Larry.
Arthur D. Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech, Chairman of Apple, and director of Hoffmann-La Roche, will be CEO and a founding investor.
"We focus on early-stage, proof-of-concept research as a non-profit here at SENS Research Foundation. That sort of work is appealing to only the most visionary of investors in the for-profit world. But the ultimate goal of Peter Thiel and our other early supporters has always been to kickstart real anti-aging industry, so it's very important news." said Mike Kope, CEO of SENS Research Foundation.
"I applaud the vision of Google in choosing to devote their energies toward solving the problems of age-related disease, and warmly welcome Art Levinson to this new initiative."
After speaking at a Google Tech Talk in Mountain View last month, SENS Research Foundation co-founder and CSO Aubrey de Grey was asked to opine on the news in a response at TIME, also published today.
"The 'beginning of the beginning' of the war on aging began in the 1990s. Since then, the battle for hearts and minds as to that quest’s feasibility has been proceeding at full tilt. With Google’s decision to direct its resources toward aging, that battle may have been transcended. The curmudgeons no longer matter," said Aubrey. "It's no exaggeration to state that the end of the beginning may have arrived. I won’t go so far as to say that my crusading job is done, but for sure it just got a whole lot easier."

No comments: