'We will be able to live to 1,000'
Last Updated: Friday, 3 December, 2004, 00:01 GMT
By Dr Aubrey de Grey
University of Cambridge
Aubrey de Grey: "The first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already"
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Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.
Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.
If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.
Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.
clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk