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SENS is a plan to reverse human aging through an engineering approach that seeks to slow down and stop aging processes. The plan proposes solutions to the seven causes of aging and is represented by the Methuselah Institute. Dr. Aubrey de Grey proposes a 50/50 probability of success within 20-30 years.
SENS stands for Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, a detailed plan to reverse human aging. It is an engineering approach that seeks to slow down and therefore stop the aging processes which are the side effects of our body’s metabolic cycles. The proposal originated with Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a Cambridge biogerontologist who has been featured in CNN, The New York Times, New Scientist, Popular Science, MIT’s Technology Review, Fortune magazine and BBC News. SENS is represented by the Methuselah Institute, which has raised $3 million in pledges for the Methuselah Mouse Award, an award for researchers who achieve success in extending the lifespan of laboratory mice. The idea is that radical success with extending the life of mice would open the door to enthusiasm for human anti-aging techniques along the same lines.
The SENS website lists the seven causes of pathogenic damage underlying aging:
1) cellular exhaustion
2) chromosomal mutations (cancer)
3) mitochondrial mutations
4) unwanted cells that will not die
5) extracellular cross-links
6) extracellular garbage
7) intracellular garbage
These seven sources of harm are considered complete because they were all discovered over 20 years ago, and our tools for detecting sources of pathology have improved so dramatically over this time that if there were more to be found, they would be obvious by now. The SENS plan proposes the following solutions which correspond respectively to the seven causes of ageing:
1) Stem cells, growth factors, exercise
2) WILT (whole body interdiction of telomere lengthening)
3) Allotopic expression of 13 proteins
4) Cell ablation, reprogramming
5) Age-breaking molecules/enzymes
6) Phagocytosis; beta-switches
7) Transgenic microbial hydrolases
De Gray proposes a 50/50 probability that within twenty to thirty years our implementations of the above countermeasures will become sophisticated enough to lower the aging rate to negligible. After that point, the only threats to life that would remain are disease, war, accidents, and technological or natural disasters. The idea of reversing aging is quite radical, but SENS represents a comprehensive plan and research program to achieve this goal.
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