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U.S. Transhumanist Party Discussion Panel on Life Extension – February 18, 2017

U.S. Transhumanist Party Discussion Panel on Life Extension – February 18, 2017

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The New Renaissance Hat

Listen to and download the audio recording of this panel discussion at http://rationalargumentator.com/USTP_Life_Extension_Panel.mp3 (right-click to download).

For its second expert panel, the U.S. Transhumanist Party invited Bill Andrews, Aubrey de Grey, Ira Pastor, and Ilia Stambler to discuss life extension and the quest to reverse biological aging through science and technology.

This two-hour panel discussion, moderated by Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, took place on Saturday, February 18, 2017, at 10 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time. In this interactive venue, many opportunities for fresh discourse arose on the possibility of achieving dramatically greater longevity within our lifetimes. The substance of the discussion begins at 4:25 in the recording.

Questions the panelists considered include the following:

(i) How would you characterize the current state of efforts to reverse senescence / lengthen human lifespans?
(ii) How does progress in the areas of research you have delved into compare to your expectations approximately 10 to 15 years ago?
(iii) What are the most significant challenges and obstacles that you perceive to exist in the way of achieving serious reversal of biological aging?
(iv) What key technologies and methods of delivering treatments to patients would need to be developed in order for longevity escape velocity to be affordably achieved society-wide?
(v) What political reforms and societal / attitudinal changes would you advocate to accelerate the arrival of effective treatments to reverse biological aging and lengthen lifespans?
(vi) Are you concerned about any current political trends and how they might affect the progress of research into combating biological aging?
(vii) What can laypersons who are sympathetic to your goals do in order to hasten their realization? How can the effort to defeat aging become as popular and widely supported as efforts to defeat cancer and ALS are today?
(viii) What lessons can the history of anti-aging research offer to those who seek to advocate and help achieve effective scientific breakthroughs in this area in the coming years and decades?

Become a member of the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free. Apply here.

References

“Genetic stabilization of transthyretin, cerebrovascular disease, and life expectancy” – Paper by Louise S. Hornstrup, Ruth Frikke-Schmidt, Børge G. Nordestgaard and Anne Tybjærg-Hansen. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2013;33:1441-1447, Originally published May 15, 2013.

“Recognizing Degenerative Aging as a Treatable Medical Condition: Methodology and Policy” – Paper by Ilia Stambler. Aging and Disease.

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Panelists

Dr. Bill Andrews is the President and CEO of Sierra Sciences – http://www.sierrasci.com/. As a scientist, athlete, and executive, he continually pushes the envelope and challenges convention. In his 35-year biotech career, he has focused the last 23 years on finding ways to extend the human lifespan and healthspan through telomere maintenance. As one of the principal discoverers of both the RNA and protein components of human telomerase, Dr. Andrews was awarded 2nd place as “National Inventor of the Year” in 1997.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey is the biomedical gerontologist who researched the idea for and founded SENS Research Foundation – http://www.sens.org/. He received his BA in Computer Science and Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Cambridge in 1985 and 2000, respectively. Dr. de Grey is Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations.

Ira Pastor has 30 years of experience across multiple sectors of the pharmaceutical industry, including pharmaceutical commercialization, biotech drug development, managed care, distribution, OTC, and retail. He is the CEO of BioQuark, Inc. – http://www.bioquark.com/ – and Executive Chairman of ReAnima Advanced Biosciences – https://reanima.tech/.

Dr. Ilia Stambler is a researcher at Bar Ilan University, Israel. His research focuses on the historical and social implications of aging and life-extension research. He is the author of A History of Life-extensionism in the Twentieth Century – www.longevityhistory.com. He is actively involved in advocacy for aging and longevity research – www.longevityforall.org.

MILE / U.S. Transhumanist Party Interview with Ira Pastor of Bioquark, Inc.

MILE / U.S. Transhumanist Party Interview with Ira Pastor of Bioquark, Inc.

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The New Renaissance Hat

G. Stolyarov II

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Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, was honored to interview entrepreneur and pharmaceutical industry veteran Ira Pastor for MILE – the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension – the U.S. Transhumanist Party, and the Nevada Transhumanist Party. The hour-long conversation delved into a variety of interrelated subject areas, including regeneration and repair mechanisms in animals, potential applications in humans, development of substances and treatments that could achieve victories against diseases and lead to longer lifespans, political and regulatory implications for the development of such substances, the importance of awareness of this research within the broader society, and even a “moonshot” project called ReAnima for repairing traumatic injury to organs and tissues that would otherwise cause irreversible death in accident victims.

This interview took place on Saturday, February 11, 2017, at 10 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time.

Read about Bioquark here.

Read about Mr. Pastor here.

Join the U.S. Transhumanist Party for free here.

Visit and like the MILE – Movement for Indefinite Life Extension – Facebook page here.

An Overview of Involuntary Bodily Functions and Cellular Regeneration (2004) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

An Overview of Involuntary Bodily Functions and Cellular Regeneration (2004) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 26, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2004 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 4,700 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 26, 2014
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Two of the mechanisms essential to sustaining human life as we know it are the brain’s coordination of involuntary bodily activities and cellular regeneration. This paper explores such phenomena.
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The brain is responsible for coordinating all involuntary bodily mechanisms, which, in themselves, occupy a far greater amount of the body’s functions than conscious activities. This involuntary activity includes facilitating digestion of food, the movement of muscles, and the reception of sensory signals, and responses such as pain, hunger, or the adrenaline rush.

At present, my brain is facilitating my capacity to see, though the specific items I concentrate are determined by my personal choice. I may choose to touch the keyboard, but the sensation this creates on the tips of my fingers is engineered by the brain without my consent. My heart beats involuntarily; I would not be able to engage in many other activities if I were forced to consciously guide it through its every motion.

The majority of human cells regenerate both to repair damage to a given tissue and to ensure a lifespan beyond that of the given cells. Since human beings will inevitably suffer from a wide variety of minor harms and accidents throughout their lives, it is useful for the body to possess the ability to partially repair itself.

The walls of the stomach, after being eroded by stomach acid, can grow back to their former thickness. A cut can heal by the generation of new skin cells. In the event that white blood cells suffer heavy casualties when resisting microbes, new ones can take their place. These cells are generally short-lived and last for a few years at the most. They must be replaced in order for the human organism to continue existing for decades.

If heart and nerve cells possessed the ability to regenerate, two of the leading causes of “natural” death, brain atrophy and heart failure, would be eliminated, as new vitality would be imparted upon these organs by successive creation of new cells to take the place of old and declining ones.

There are no apparent negative drawbacks to the regeneration of heart cells, but the regeneration of nerve cells may hold the potential of memory loss. If a particular neuron in the brain were responsible for storing a particular datum of information, that datum might be lost once that cell atrophied, though the organism could continue functioning and acquiring new information by the use of the fresh neuron that would arise in the old one’s place.

Of course, in a technological society, where forgotten information can quickly be recalled by the reading of books or the viewing of audiovisual records of multiple varieties, this drawback would not be substantial to bring about complete amnesia or loss of personality within the individual.