Aubrey de Grey - How to Defeat Aging

Is aging a disease that can be cured?

Aubrey de Grey, British researcher on aging, claims he has drawn a roadmap to defeat biological aging. He provocatively proposes that the first human beings who will live to 1,000 years old have already been born.

A true maverick, Aubrey de Grey challenges the most basic assumption underlying the human condition - that aging is inevitable. He argues instead that aging is a disease - one that can be cured if it's approached as "an engineering problem." His plan calls for identifying all the components that cause human tissue to age, and designing remedies for each of them - forestalling disease and eventually pushing back death. He calls the approach 'Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS).

With his astonishingly long beard, wiry frame and penchant for bold and cutting proclamations, de Grey is a magnet for controversy. A computer scientist, self-taught biogerontologist and researcher, he has co-authored journal articles with some of the most respected scientists in the field.

But the scientific community doesn't know what to make of him. In July 2005, the MIT Technology Review challenged scientists to disprove de Grey's claims, offering a $20,000 prize (half the prize money was put up by de Grey's Methuselah Foundation) to any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that "SENS is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate."

Doors will open 7pm, with the talk beginning at 8pm - giving you a chance to grab a drink and connect with like-minded people before the talk.