Longevity scientist says he’ll live to 150

IMAGINE a world in which people live to celebrate their 500th birthday; where sprightly, smooth-skinned men and women with the agility of 30-year-olds roam the planet, popping pills that prevent the curse of ageing. It may sound like a fantasy (a rather gruesome one at that) but for longevity scientist Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, it’s a fully realisable scenario of the not too distant future.

The biotechnology scientist and his team are working on a range of drugs through his US-based company Insilico Medicine that, he claims, have powers of age prevention and even, in some instances, rejuvenation.

“Ageing is the most pressing problem facing humanity,” says Zhavoronkov, who holds a PhD in physics from the Moscow State University and heads the think-tank, the Biogerontology Research Foundation based in Oxford.

Finding the optimal combinations of drugs that will eliminate old age is his life’s work — but given that he expects to live to 150, there’s plenty of time for that eureka moment.

Zhavoronkov has partnered with US supplement company The Life Extension Foundation, which, if all goes as planned, will launch a range of products called geroprotectors, compounds that may slow down ageing or even repair some of the ageassociated processes, early next year. Geroprotectors are likely to be more expensive than multivitamins, but only slightly.

Far-fetched as his plans might sound, Zhavoronkov is just one of a wave of scientists intent on discovering the elixir of youth, with big business and academic researchers devoting ever more resources to combating ageing.

Such is Zhavoronkov’s faith that he has become his own lab rat.

As well as taking 100 different drugs and supplements each day — mostly over-the-counter drugs, supplements, minerals and vitamins, consumed in high concentrations — he exercises regularly and undergoes frequent tests — all part of his “mission to change the world”.

Not all his fellow scientists agree with him, though. Dr Nazif Alic, research fellow at University College London’s Institute of Ageing, says: “There’s not been a single experiment that I’ve seen where ageing has been eliminated; it’s only been delayed and the severity of disease reduced.”

But why would anyone want to live to 150? Zhavoronkov says it will make us better people. “Before global warming, global hunger, going to space, the top priority needs to be stopping ageing. When people are freed from worrying about getting old, they will have more time to be altruistic. Then we can go after and solve those other things.” — © The Daily Telegraph, London

Ageing is the most pressing problem facing humanity