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5th
EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2004 |
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Session III |
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| Science
and the industry of anti-aging |
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Laura Helmuth, Science Editor, Smithsonian Magazine,
Washington, USA
Popular culture everywhere abounds in an amalgam
of old and new remedies for aging and longevity.
Its advocates expound miraculous healing powers
and life-enhancing properties of a large variety
of foods, waters, vitamins, minerals, hormones,
chemicals, and spiritual practices that they offer
to us as easily attainable commodities of the free
market. Various sorts of medical professionals throughout
the world successfully advocate the idea that ways
and means to slow down, stop, or reverse the aging
process are available. As such, anti-aging is a
well-established multi-billion dollar biomedical
and cosmeceutical business sector. In recent years,
research scientists have increasingly started to
lay claims to their specific knowledge [and, possibly,
mastery] of the biological mechanisms of aging.
What motivates scientists in their choice of research
topics is evidently a complex question. Socioeconomic
and historical circumstances often work together
to attract researchers and cluster them around certain
areas of inquiry and to abandon other. Why, then,
would life scientists start to get interested in
the study of 'aging'? Life scientists claim that
progress within molecular and cell biology has opened
the door to an approach fundamentally different
from the age-old folk traditions of anti-aging.
Discovering the rules that govern life at the molecular
level, they say, will allow people to exert direct
control over specific genes for the first time in
history. This technology has the potential to enhance
health and extend longevity by allowing us to augment
gene products that diminish with age; to suppress
the action of harmful genes; to remove damaged or
harmful genes and replace them with desirable ones;
to amplify the action of genes that enhance health
and longevity; and to predict which individuals
are at risk for genetic diseases.
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