Dr. Aubrey DeGrey is best known outside of the longevity community for discussing the end of aging on the TED stage, as well as on 60 minutes, the Colbert Report, the Joe Rogan experience, and many other popular programs. Inside the longevity community, he's best known for co-founding the SENS Research Foundation and the Methusel Foundation, both of which do impressive work in seeking to solve the problem of human aging. In recent weeks, Dr. DeGrey has once again been in the news, but not for his efforts in longevity science. Despite this, or perhaps partly because of it, Dr. DeGrey's recent talk at the Ending Age Related Diseases Conference got quite a bit of attention. We'll tell you what he said in this episode of Lifespan News. On August 19th, 2021, Dr. Aubrey DeGrey addressed the attendees of Lifespan.io's fourth annual Ending Age Related Diseases Conference with a talk focused on the continuing work and changing priorities within longevity science. This talk was given during the independent investigation, while Dr. DeGrey was on administrative leave from SENS, but while he was still affiliated with the organization. His only comments on that came at the very beginning. So, I just thought I'd start by saying that some of you may have heard, perhaps, of a complication that's going on in my life right now. So I just wanted to say that there is an independent investigation, which was started at the beginning of July and is still ongoing. And that, of course, means a couple of things. First of all, it means that I am on administrative leave, which means that I am not representing SENS research foundation here today. Officially, I am here in a personal capacity. I should have mentioned that I just noticed I have the SENS research foundation logo at the bottom of all my slides. So please pretend that that isn't there. Apart from that, I can't say anything more at all about what's going on. And of course, this would be the wrong place anyway. So I just want to say how overwhelmed I am for all the love and support that I've received from hundreds and hundreds of people. And it shouldn't be long now, so watch this space. Dr. DeGrey then got on with the main content of his talk, in which he detailed five emerging challenges that he sees in longevity science. Challenge number one is short-termism, and the pressure to go after low-hanging fruit. This exists in the business world as a focus on achieving profits as soon as possible, and in the academic world through the publish or perish mentality. The problem with this, Dr. DeGrey argues, is that much of this research doesn't lead anywhere, and short-termism takes focus away from harder problems that may be more useful to solve. Challenge number two is the combining therapies, while useful to generate knowledge, is boring, meaning that there's no incentive for researchers to undertake the difficult work of studying the effects of combined therapies when that isn't the primary interest of high-profile publishers. Intellectual property also stands in the way of combined therapies, and licensing deals typically take a long time to work out. According to Dr. DeGrey, some of the reportedly $27 million worth of cryptocurrency recently donated to SENS through the Pulse Chain Air Drop will fund work on combining therapies. At the foundation, there is now a very nascent effort to do that. We are putting together a program to put just two therapies together, a stem cell therapy and a synolytic therapy, and there's going to be a lot more of that. I believe that one of the biggest consequences of the enormous windfall that some of you may know we received recently is that there'll be a very big expansion of work at the SENS research foundation on combining therapies. It may end up being our main focus over the next few years, but we shall see. You can learn more about this large donation in our video linked in the description. Challenge number three is that more money means less mission. Dr. DeGrey explained that he sees that many angel and seed investors are mission focused. They have the goal of seeing longevity science succeed and enabling people to live longer, however, when companies in this space prematurely seek to go public or be acquired, additional money, likely tied to less mission-driven motivations and incentives, comes into play. This can be the downfall of mission-driven companies. In Dr. DeGrey warns that we could end up having things slow down and go less rapidly than they could, if we allow too many companies to make this kind of mistake. Challenge number four deals with the clinical trial for metformin against aging or tame. According to Dr. DeGrey, this trial faced considerable challenges within the FDA and NIH. Even once those hurdles seemed to have been cleared, which was no small feat, the trial still faced funding concerns, as metformin was off-patent and industry had no financial incentive to fund a trial. Instead, donors and foundations were and are needed to fill the void. Dr. DeGrey believes that the tame trial will be groundbreaking and could encourage big pharma to invest in longevity therapies if there can be a demonstrated path to market. However, the trial is years behind schedule, and it's yet to really get off the ground. This delay is a major challenge, and it must be overcome. Challenge number five is that policy makers and governments have short attention spans. This is especially relevant now, because COVID-19 disproportionately negatively affects elderly people. So aging and the health concerns accompanying it have been front of mind. In COVID-19, it didn't just end lives in harm health, it also heavily impacted the economy, and policy makers cared deeply about the economy. So while this is on their mind, this could be a good opportunity to remind them of the extraordinary benefits that would come from addressing the problems of aging. Here's how Dr. DeGrey put it. So I've mentioned in the past, I may even have mentioned a year ago at this meeting, that COVID is a bit of an opportunity, in the sense that it has hit the elderly extraordinarily preferentially. As we know, most infectious diseases are worse for the elderly than for young adults, but it's particularly extreme in the case of COVID. What we have not, I believe, said nearly loudly enough and focused policy makers nearly strongly enough on, is the fact that among all of the damage or repair rejuvenation technologies that were interested in, rejuvenating the immune system is really going rather well. It's one of the ones that's furthest along. If policy makers were to understand that really not very much additional public money thrown at this kind of area could have a significant impact on the immune function of the elderly, and thus could have a very significant impact on the likelihood, level of the severity of any future pandemic, then we would be in a better position than what we are now. Overall, the crusade against aging is accelerating, but there's still much work to be done. And to avoid regressing, we need to address some of the emerging challenges we are facing. Timing is critical, and now is the time to act. Please subscribe for more updates on the business and science of longevity. I'm Ryan O'Shea, and we'll see you next time on lifespan news.