Russian multimillionaire Sergey Young has a new goal: he wants to live to age 200, and he’s already spent around $100 million to figure out how.
Young, a technology expert himself, has invested what he’s calling “immortality science.” His project, the “Longevity Vision Fund,” includes the creation of bionic body parts, 3-D organ printing, and avatars.
“No one knows how to live beyond 122,” he said. But he hopes to change that, and not just for himself. His goal is to “change the lives of 1 billion people.”
So far, Young has explored a variety of technological advancements. He has looked into the growth of replacement organs along with other research led by artificial intelligence.
This new technology offers hope for a lot of new things: earlier cancer diagnoses, new drug development, and organ transplant replacement.
Young is currently meeting with over 100 companies each year to fulfill his goal. One particularly promising organization he’s supporting is a firm out of the United Kingdom called Juvenescence. The UK company is working on something called “senolytic” drugs, which are able to rid the body of deteriorating cells. This breathes new life into body tissues that are dwindling as a result of age.
Another project Young is funding is by LyGenesis. This company is working to regrow organs inside the human body. One challenge that artificial organ projects face has to do with the body’s autoimmune response, and LyGenesis is working to solve it.
When researchers place artificial organs in the body, the body treats it as foreign and rejects it. So cultivating organs inside the own body in its own lymph system offers a way to mitigate this issue.
Young’s partnership with Silicon Valley’s Freenome is attempting to detect cancer in its earlier stages.
The project utilizes AI systems to try and find colorectal cancer early on so that it doesn’t spread and become untreatable.
Young’s goal is certainly ambitious, but it’s not impossible. “Seventy to 80 years ago, the average lifespan on Earth was 43 years,” he said. “Right now in countries like the UK and US, it’s anywhere between 75 to 80 years. So we’re going to continue to expand [that].“
The goal is to use biotechnologies to continue revitalizing the body, keeping it new and young. Genetic engineering is one way to accomplish this, which could help to reverse cell aging. But some people believe that ultimately we’ll extend our lives using robots.
According to the famous futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, “Everyone will have a chance to have immortality, a sort of electronic immortality.”
Immortality isn’t exactly Young’s goal. He’s just hoping to extend life expectancy and rejuvenate the body so that living at age 80 can feel like living at age 30.
