tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post5213768997221652207..comments2011-11-18T22:24:47.991-08:00Anne Corwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-31597396606605682062007-10-27T01:36:00.000-07:002007-10-27T01:36:00.000-07:00Wired Science had a nice little segment on the lab grown organs recently. Theres a link to it in my blog somewhere.Gash jackelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06360191254032226588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-88463883876039059562007-10-26T21:07:00.000-07:002007-10-26T21:07:00.000-07:00<B>abfh</B> said:<BR/><BR/><I>lab-grown organs will indeed be used routinely in the near future, as part of mainstream medicine. Bioengineering students can now specialize in producing artificial organs</I><BR/><BR/>That is WAY cool. That's definitely what I'd consider to be a good, positive, encouraging use of bioengineering. :DAnneChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-22452931229143778542007-10-26T21:06:00.000-07:002007-10-26T21:06:00.000-07:00<B>Gash</B> said:<BR/><BR/><I>The human body is constantly damaged just by simple acts such as breathing and normal cell division. </I><BR/><BR/>Yes -- and metabolism is not likely to be fully understood at any point in the near future. I'm curious as to whether you've read up much on <A HREF="http://www.sens.org" REL="nofollow">SENS</A> (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) -- there's a lot there that explains the logic behind the "rigorous maintenance" approach. <BR/><BR/>Traditional gerontology's business is to study <I>how</I> the body changes with age, and eventually that might lead to the capability to perform more advanced re-engineering of bodily systems, but in the shorter term, better maintenance is a good working strategy. <BR/><BR/>The engineering approach, however, says, "Show me the damage!" and then tries to figure out how to make the damage go away without necessarily having to alter the systems that produce it. There's no guarantee it will necessarily work in all areas, but the example of hypertension medication makes a fairly clear case for the notion of it doing <I>some</I> good over the course of a person's life.<BR/><BR/>I'm sure there will always be folks working on the "complete rebuild and redesign" strategy you suggest in your comment, however, today's middle-aged and older people can't wait that long. <BR/><BR/>The engineering approach seems more likely to lead to better treatments for things that actually affect people now -- e.g., heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, diabetes -- and I think it would do a disservice to people dealing with those conditions to just tell them, "Sorry, you need to wait until we finish Body 2.0!" <BR/><BR/>(And just to answer your other comment, I am not on MSN and not likely to be anytime soon. Plenty else going on!)AnneChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-24739373369765417602007-10-26T20:56:00.000-07:002007-10-26T20:56:00.000-07:00<B>Dale</B> said: <I>It is important to stress to your readership that the conclusion one draws from this insight is not that somehow it is clarifying to redescribe the treatment of hypertension and such as part of an effort to "defeat aging," but that advocates for research and funding for longevity and rejuvenation medicine (or, heaven help us, "technological immortality") should instead be redescribing most of the things they presently associate with "defeating aging" as, simply, "healthcare" </I><BR/><BR/>I've definitely been going that way as of late -- basically, what occurred to me full-force recently was the fact that while some people squirm and balk at the notion of "radical life extension", practically <I>nobody</I> thinks that it would be a bad thing to have effective treatments for heart disease, Alzheimer's, etc. <BR/><BR/>And sometimes in the abstract I see people arguing that "old people should just lay down and die to make room for the new babies", but again, very few people make this argument about their own beloved grandparents. <BR/><BR/>I do think that there is some need to counter "pro-death" attitudes of the sort that would condemn the elderly to medical negligence on the basis that such persons don't "deserve" the same levels of resource investment as younger people do, but overall I think that talking about, say, SENS initiatives in terms of the actual physical systems they might help out with is probably a better way to actually get research support.AnneChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-45773139193041125592007-10-26T02:16:00.000-07:002007-10-26T02:16:00.000-07:00If you happen to have MSN too and use that as your MSN address I'm almost tempted to add you.Gash jackelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06360191254032226588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-6807768776817005762007-10-25T23:25:00.000-07:002007-10-25T23:25:00.000-07:00Eric, my e-mail link is not broken -- it isn't intended to be a link at all. Mouse over the "link" and read the text. Replace the word "underscore" with a _ character, and the phrase "you know the rest" with .com and you'll have my e-mail address.<BR/><BR/>I should probably have one of those "spam accounts" people often use as their publicly posted e-mail address, but so far I've not gotten around to setting that up.<BR/><BR/>(will respond to other comments later, but wanted to address this one now because I figure a fair number of others might be confused by it).AnneChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-42583255713367335842007-10-25T22:19:00.000-07:002007-10-25T22:19:00.000-07:00your e-mail link is broken. Is there any way to contact you? You should post an e-mail address on the screen.Eric Bottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01908848251725569340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-36518945350283510392007-10-25T08:05:00.000-07:002007-10-25T08:05:00.000-07:00Quite right, much of what we now consider to be basic health care already has extended our longevity considerably. I know a 44-year-old man who takes medication for hypertension so that he will not die of a stroke before age 50, like all of his mother's siblings did. That one advance in medical treatment probably was sufficient in itself to double his lifespan.<BR/><BR/>In response to the previous comment, lab-grown organs will indeed be used routinely in the near future, as part of mainstream medicine. Bioengineering students can now specialize in producing artificial organs, such as in <A HREF="http://www.engr.pitt.edu/bioengineering/main/undergraduate/concentrations/cell_organ.html" REL="nofollow">this program at the University of Pittsburgh</A>.abfhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01228622726560993968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-40360038147995869702007-10-25T06:28:00.000-07:002007-10-25T06:28:00.000-07:00I forgot to mention this in my comment just now. I was looking at Wired and saw something that would certainly interest someone interested in longevity. Organs being grown outside the human body, in theory one means of helping the human body last longer would be to replace parts that have gotten worn out.Gash jackelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06360191254032226588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-89732607860564161032007-10-25T06:20:00.000-07:002007-10-25T06:20:00.000-07:00To be fair the idea of maintaining our current bodies as much as possible is one that perhaps may not be the wisest course?<BR/><BR/>The human body is constantly damaged just by simple acts such as breathing and normal cell division. While replacing or repairing damaged parts will certainly improve our lifespan as well as quality of life in old age it would inevitably be expensive, difficult to do and could lead to a whole new level of human society that is able to afford such regular treatments. And lets not forget that things such as space travel would cause horrendous damage to our meaty frames.<BR/><BR/><BR/>In my opinion we should not put too much effort into maintaining what nature has made and instead put more effort into completely redesigning and rebuilding the human form into something more capable of meeting the challenges ahead of us.Gash jackelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06360191254032226588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25425497.post-34766420749808429082007-10-24T08:57:00.000-07:002007-10-24T08:57:00.000-07:00Yes, this is the key thing for me as well. It is important to stress to your readership that the conclusion one draws from this insight is not that somehow it is clarifying to redescribe the treatment of hypertension and such as part of an effort to "defeat aging," but that advocates for research and funding for longevity and rejuvenation medicine (or, heaven help us, "technological immortality") should instead be redescribing most of the things they presently associate with "defeating aging" as, simply, "healthcare" -- very much including the Seven Deadly Things at the heart of the SENS research program, and comparable formulations from research programs to come.Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.com