The cutting edge of anti-ageing science | Venki Ramakrishnan
Molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan discusses his new book, Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality.
Venki and host Luisa Rodriguez cover:
• What we can learn about extending human lifespan — if anything — from “immortal” aquatic animal species, cloned sheep, and the oldest people to have ever lived.
• Which areas of anti-ageing research seem most promising to Venki — including caloric restriction, removing senescent cells, cellular reprogramming, and Yamanaka factors — and which Venki thinks are overhyped.
• Why eliminating major age-related diseases might only extend average lifespan by 15 years.
• The social impacts of extending healthspan or lifespan in an ageing population — including the potential danger of massively increasing inequality if some people can access life-extension interventions while others can’t.
• And plenty more.
Learn more and see the full transcript on the 80,000 Hours website: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episod...
Chapters:
• Cold open (00:00:00)
• Luisa's intro (00:01:04)
• The interview begins (00:02:21)
• Reasons to explore why we age and die (00:02:35)
• Evolutionary pressures and animals that don't biologically age (00:06:55)
• Why does ageing cause us to die? (00:12:24)
• Is there a hard limit to the human lifespan? (00:17:11)
• Evolutionary tradeoffs between fitness and longevity (00:21:01)
• How ageing resets with every generation, and what we can learn from clones (00:23:48)
• Younger blood (00:31:20)
• Freezing cells, organs, and bodies (00:36:47)
• Are the goals of anti-ageing research even realistic? (00:43:44)
• Dementia (00:49:52)
• Senescence (01:01:58)
• Caloric restriction and metabolic pathways (01:11:45)
• Yamanaka factors (01:34:07)
• Cancer (01:47:44)
• Mitochondrial dysfunction (01:58:40)
• Population effects of extended lifespan (02:06:12)
• Could increased longevity increase inequality? (02:11:48)
• What’s surprised Venki about this research (02:16:06)
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