Google-Backed Company Partners With Ancestry To Beat Aging

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This plan to come up with a pill that will help us all live longer seems a bit far fetched. Then again, the company in question is backed by Google so who knows? ;)

On Tuesday, Calico, the medical research company Google incubated in 2013, announced it had cut a deal for access to genetic information from Ancestry, the largest family tree website. It’s among the first public moves from Calico, the secretive division born to (gasp!) extend human life. With its new DNA data — properly anonymized — Calico will look for genetic patterns in people who have lived exceptionally long lives, then make drugs to help more of us do that.
 
What if the people who live long are genetically giant dickheads, wouldn't this property also transfer to the people who try this? :D
 
This is just a thinly veiled datamining and profiling operation, any increase in longevity is merely a coincidence.
 
Calico will look for genetic patterns in people who have lived exceptionally long lives, then make drugs to help more of us do that.
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And then get a patent on the genes of those people they sequence? :D
 
What if people want a pill for the inverse, to not live as long? HMMMM? now what?
 
Looking for longevity is the same thing as looking for its opposite. It opposite would be genetic risk factors for health and life expectancy that people arry which insurance companies and employers would love to know.

Its a smoke screen for making a genetics database to apply to everyone and sell your genetic risk factor info.
 
Every person who gets mapped in an ancestry database and has relatives whose medical history is known will have statistical risk factors formed on them by that information.
 
This will have insurance companies salivating like crazy!

Lots of money at stake here,.

/shiver
 
Its impossible to cure any genetic behavior with a pill. The best medicine has right now is to lessen certain genetically caused diseases or mask it entirely. Once you have it you have it.

The only way to cure something caused by genetics is to remove that gene from your pool entirely, which would be impossible unless we want to blast ourselves with massive gama radiation. Too bad that would cause certain death in moments.
 
Trimlock said:
Its impossible to cure any genetic behavior with a pill. The best medicine has right now is to lessen certain genetically caused diseases or mask it entirely. Once you have it you have it.

The only way to cure something caused by genetics is to remove that gene from your pool entirely, which would be impossible unless we want to blast ourselves with massive gama radiation. Too bad that would cause certain death in moments.
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Uh false for a few reasons. One is epigenetics which can tweak your existing genes. Two because they can reprogram your genes with gene therapy with tools like CRISPR. And we already know of such genes like FOXO for example. Here's a video explaining it. You'll know if you have it if people say you have a baby face. People with two copies of FOXO look 8-10 years younger.

As far as aging goes we know there's 7 causes. Most of which will be fully cured within 30-40 years.

Cell loss, tissue atrophy -> Probably 5 years away with stem cells.
Cancerous cells -> maybe 10 years cause we have compounds that work to extend telomeres.
Mitochondrial mutations -> No real solution in sight and probably not an issue since everyone at all ages has 1% mutations.
Death-resistant cells -> Also no real solution in sight.
Extracellular matrix stiffening -> Already have a chemical that breaks it down called lanosterol.
Extracellular aggregates \
ntracellular aggregates / Both are the same and can be broken down with enzymes.

Most of the time used is finding stronger chemicals that do the job better and clinical trials. For example the 4 compounds they found to extend telomeres is only 5% effective. Resveratrol does work in mice to extend their lives but we don't if it works in humans. Though you can buy it as a vitamin and people speak highly about it. Needs more testing and a more potent version.

We're at a point in medicine that we can't make you live longer than 80 or 90 years old. Before you die you'll be decrepit and weak. To move forward, medicine needs to attack aging. Solve aging and you solve heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. In other words 2/3 of deaths in the world today.
 
Even if "aging" was "cured" tomorrow, 90%+ of the human population would never see that medical breakthrough.

Unless you could simultaneously find a way to stop breeding, save for a select few deemed worthy to procreate... we'd all kill each other off within a generation or two as our dwindling natural resources led us to genocide and world war... if nature didn't do us all in somehow first.

You can't fuck with the balance of natural systems like that and expect anything other than mass-extinction... which is pretty much what is already happening right now, world wide.
 
Technically as a species if we didn't age or die we would likely naturally stop producing over time, that is nature.
 
Great.
Science will give us many more years to spend in a 15' by 12' room of a nursing home, In a room you share with someone who you don't know and kids who visit twice a year. Taking pills to heal from skin tears and bedsores.

I am salivating!
 
ToddW2 said:
Technically as a species if we didn't age or die we would likely naturally stop producing over time, that is nature.
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If it occurred slowly and naturally, we'd probably evolve away from procreating... if it's a sudden change occurring from science/technology, good luck getting people to stop fucking and popping out kids before we kill ourselves.

Though personally I'd rather live to be 100 with a healthy sex life than 1000 and never get laid, but that's just me...

What's life without love and sex? We certainly wouldn't be human any more.
 
I just wish to peer into the future 1,000 years and 10,000 years from now. Either we won't exist at all or it'll blow my brain into pieces just seeing what reality would be then. Human Gods -> Normal Humans -> Slave Humans.


"Slave class human, you have committed the egregious crime of impregnation and therefore are sentenced to death, for your bloodline" "Have a nice day!"- President of the GWO (Google World Order)




:p
 
griff30 said:
Great.
Science will give us many more years to spend in a 15' by 12' room of a nursing home, In a room you share with someone who you don't know and kids who visit twice a year. Taking pills to heal from skin tears and bedsores.

I am salivating!
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The problem is with this tech is that you won't look old. You'd look like a teenager or 20's something. That means you have a lot of old people that can be working class citizens. That would hurt the job market.
 
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot said:
Even if "aging" was "cured" tomorrow, 90%+ of the human population would never see that medical breakthrough.
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About 80% of medical expenses are used on people 65+. If you had a way to prevent or cure aging, insurance companies would throw this in your face. Where as pharmaceutical companies would love to continue to keep you on life support with pills that have nasty side effects. Not that pharmaceuticals wouldn't love to give you this medication to cure aging but they'd quickly realize that their overall profits are effected by this.
Unless you could simultaneously find a way to stop breeding, save for a select few deemed worthy to procreate... we'd all kill each other off within a generation or two as our dwindling natural resources led us to genocide and world war... if nature didn't do us all in somehow first.
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In first world countries we already have an average decline in population. In America it's 1.88 children, but to maintain a population you need 2.1. So we're pretty good at keeping birth rates low already. It's the 3rd world countries that need control.
You can't fuck with the balance of natural systems like that and expect anything other than mass-extinction... which is pretty much what is already happening right now, world wide.
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Mass extinction of humans?
 
It would be easy enough for Google to do something like Heinlein's fictional "Howard Families". Just offer a large enough bounty for people from long-lived families to marry each other and have children.
 
I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that we might live to be up to about 50% longer than people currently do. This is not an all or nothing thing. Then again, what the hell do I know?
 
Ashbringer said:
The problem is with this tech is that you won't look old. You'd look like a teenager or 20's something. That means you have a lot of old people that can be working class citizens. That would hurt the job market.
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Oh, great!
We can work another 40 years until we can retire.


Still salivating!
 
Trimlock said:
Its impossible to cure any genetic behavior with a pill. The best medicine has right now is to lessen certain genetically caused diseases or mask it entirely. Once you have it you have it.

The only way to cure something caused by genetics is to remove that gene from your pool entirely, which would be impossible unless we want to blast ourselves with massive gama radiation. Too bad that would cause certain death in moments.
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Wrong. There is a pill out there that cures one (of the many forms) of cystic fibrosis - gene G551D. I know this because my daughter has CF, and I watch the drug pipeline constantly for cures for her mutation Q996Q.

Steve
 
griff30 said:
Oh, great!
We can work another 40 years until we can retire.


Still salivating!
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We'd have larger problems in the future. I can't see the world continuing the way it is with money. At some point automation will take away enough jobs that you can't work cause there's no work. A lot of what we do can be automated.

Compound the fact that the population isn't getting old and dying and you have a war coming in the future. Cause the people that'll be unaffected by this are the rich and they'll want to stay that way.

Just because there's anti aging tech doesn't mean people still won't die. The longer you live the more likely you'll die from an accident. An suicides will likely go up as well. As it is suicide is #10 for America right now.
 
v6maro said:
Wrong. There is a pill out there that cures one (of the many forms) of cystic fibrosis - gene G551D. I know this because my daughter has CF, and I watch the drug pipeline constantly for cures for her mutation Q996Q.

Steve
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Not sure what that pill does but eventually we'll be able to edit genes with CRISPR. Scary stuff what they'll be able to do. Though it'll be a while before we can edit every gene in every cell in the body but you won't need to for most genetic diseases. So I wouldn't be surprised if an injection of CRISPR into the lungs could cure it eventually. Though there are concerns like could it cause an auto immune response or cause mutations that makes things worse. CRISPR kinda breaks a section of DNA and then you hope the RNA that's put in the cell to repair the DNA is done the way you want it. You're taking advantage of the cells ability to repair DNA.
 
Ashbringer said:
Not sure what that pill does but eventually we'll be able to edit genes with CRISPR. Scary stuff what they'll be able to do. Though it'll be a while before we can edit every gene in every cell in the body but you won't need to for most genetic diseases. So I wouldn't be surprised if an injection of CRISPR into the lungs could cure it eventually. Though there are concerns like could it cause an auto immune response or cause mutations that makes things worse. CRISPR kinda breaks a section of DNA and then you hope the RNA that's put in the cell to repair the DNA is done the way you want it. You're taking advantage of the cells ability to repair DNA.
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Wow man that's really awesome, thanks for posting! I'm going to do more reading on this. CF may only affect 75,000 people globally, but it's such a terrible thing I really hope there is more out-of-the-box thinking of how we can cure this, and other genetic diseases.
 
v6maro said:
Wow man that's really awesome, thanks for posting! I'm going to do more reading on this. CF may only affect 75,000 people globally, but it's such a terrible thing I really hope there is more out-of-the-box thinking of how we can cure this, and other genetic diseases.
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There's a legal dispute right now over who has the rights to CRISPR. I think currently it's 60% effective cause not all the Cells are modified properly. Even then some of the cells aren't properly modified. Before CRISPR they used modified viruses to do the job, but it was expensive. It worked but you couldn't expect to affordable do it. Might be a day that CRISPR could be done in a local doctors office with a simple injection.

There's debates right now of using this to genetically modify babies before they're born to be smarter. Tek Syndicate discussed this. If China does it should USA do it cause otherwise we'd be left behind? CRISPR not only can fix genetic diseases you can change peoples traits.
 
Ashbringer said:
Mass extinction of humans?
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Well, not humans *yet*... but there have been 5 distinct mass extinction periods in the past, and scientists now claim we are in the 6th, as the background extinction rate for various species has skyrocketed, and seems to be in a rapid downward spiral due to both climate change and humans devastating effect on the environment over the last century or two.

Biospheres and ecologies are all connected though, so once the dominoes start falling, it's only a matter of time before it catches up to us. Once the oceans die, so do we.
 
"He will come to death, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men, in glory, undimmed before the breaking of the world… but you, my daughter, you will linger on, in darkness and in doubt, as nightfall in winter comes without a star.
Here you will dwell, bound to your grief under the fading trees, until all the world is changed and the long years of your life are utterly spent."
 
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot said:
Well, not humans *yet*... but there have been 5 distinct mass extinction periods in the past, and scientists now claim we are in the 6th, as the background extinction rate for various species has skyrocketed, and seems to be in a rapid downward spiral due to both climate change and humans devastating effect on the environment over the last century or two.

Biospheres and ecologies are all connected though, so once the dominoes start falling, it's only a matter of time before it catches up to us. Once the oceans die, so do we.
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I don't think we'll go as far as killing the oceans. I believe at some point humans might be independent from the biosphere in terms of food. We're using GMO fish for example. There maybe a point where nearly every land animal will in some way be genetically modified. If not to balance the biosphere but to prevent harm to people.

For example genetically modified mosquitoes were used to decline the mosquito population to reduce malaria infections. They used Crispr to do this and it resulted in a 90%+ population decrease. Thus significantly reducing malaria in humans. We're messing with the natural order of things but that's what humans do and have been doing for some time.

HIV for example could be cured with Crispr as well. Remember Crispr was a bacteria's defense against viruses. So we could re-program infected cells to effectively remove HIV, since HIV is essentially just DNA in your cells at that point. We'd be messing around with the natural order of viruses but anyone complaining?
 
Ashbringer said:
I don't think we'll go as far as killing the oceans. I believe at some point humans might be independent from the biosphere in terms of food. We're using GMO fish for example. There maybe a point where nearly every land animal will in some way be genetically modified. If not to balance the biosphere but to prevent harm to people.

For example genetically modified mosquitoes were used to decline the mosquito population to reduce malaria infections. They used Crispr to do this and it resulted in a 90%+ population decrease. Thus significantly reducing malaria in humans. We're messing with the natural order of things but that's what humans do and have been doing for some time.

HIV for example could be cured with Crispr as well. Remember Crispr was a bacteria's defense against viruses. So we could re-program infected cells to effectively remove HIV, since HIV is essentially just DNA in your cells at that point. We'd be messing around with the natural order of viruses but anyone complaining?
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The oceans acidity levels are rapidly rising, and coral reefs are already dying off. They are an indicator species for the overall health of the ocean, as well as the foundation of many food chains... so it may already be too late to stop massive die offs in the ocean.

As fas as modifying everything... eventually we may not have a choice, but that also has it's downsides and risks. Half of our problems are *because* we've been messing with biospheres and the natural order of things.

We may know how to do some of this in controlled ways now, but we lack the knowledge to fully comprehend the full intricacies of how everything is interconnected.

What was the downside of modifying those mosquito exactly? We may not know yet, but it could collapse a whole other system...

Same with GMOs. Some are beneficial and safe, while others have been found to be harmful to humans, animals, or the environment.

It's a like a giant game of Jenga and everything you change is like pulling out a block that might be holding up the whole stack... and that is where human arrogance could end up killing us all.
 
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot said:
As fas as modifying everything... eventually we may not have a choice, but that also has it's downsides and risks. Half of our problems are *because* we've been messing with biospheres and the natural order of things.
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Most of the problems are due to humans giving a shit. The acidity is rising cause of C02 increase from humans. We know C02 is bad and we know we need to stop using fossil fuels. But it's like eating cake, you know it's bad but you'll eat it cause it's tasty. Diabetes be damned.
We may know how to do some of this in controlled ways now, but we lack the knowledge to fully comprehend the full intricacies of how everything is interconnected.
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The beauty of nature is that when something dies another species will takes its place. It'll likely evolve to fill that gap. Or we could genetically alter some bacteria to consume the C02 and hope nothing goes wrong.
What was the downside of modifying those mosquito exactly? We may not know yet, but it could collapse a whole other system...
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We know but don't care. The birds and bats eat them to survive as do a number of other animals. But malaria is also bad and it seems to be working.
Same with GMOs. Some are beneficial and safe, while others have been found to be harmful to humans, animals, or the environment.
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There is no scientific study that says GMOs are bad. Lot of studies that say it's bad but not scientific. Why would it be? You're genetically altering plants to resist infection, grow more nutrients, and grow larger. How is that going to harm you?
It's a like a giant game of Jenga and everything you change is like pulling out a block that might be holding up the whole stack... and that is where human arrogance could end up killing us all.
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Like it or not genetic engineering is the future of humans. We'll need to for space travel. We'll need to to out do China. We'll need it to evolve. If China starts to genetically make smarter better looking babies are we just going to look at them and go Murica? If there's any country that'll do it it's China.

Better question is would you alter yourself to compete in the job market? For example would you take certain genes known to enhance cognitive function like eidetic memory? Boss doesn't want fat employee's so you'll have to get a gene that keeps you fit. You can't look old so you need a gene that prevents that too.

You're worried about the biosphere and I'm thinking of how people with malicious intent could do with this. Like putting something in your drink that after a while you'll notice that you're growing pink hair. Or rather than killing of the mosquito population with a defective gene, someone gives dogs the gene to bark "fuck you". Those aren't harmful, the worst is something from Cujo.
 
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