A Cure for Ageing, or the same old story?

This House believes that funding into ageing research should be increased.

As the Queen song asks, ‘Who wants to live forever?’ – a rather less tuneful evening of science and slander at the Sheldonian last week addressed this very question.

Which would you rather be?

Dr Aubrey de Grey went head-to-head with Prof. Richard Faragher in Oxford University Bio Medical Society’s first speaker event, chaired by Oxford’s Dr Lynne Cox.

To quote de Grey, ‘ageing is unnatural…and horrible’. We couldn’t agree more.

Ewwwww

He believes there is a 50% chance we will add 30 healthy years to our lifespan within the next couple of decades.

Dr Lynne Cox and Professor Richard Faragher

He even claims the first person to live to 1000 is alive today. Could it be you?

Incontinence, dementia and wrinkles = things of the past, in Aubrey de Grey’s vision.

‘What the fuck?’ was de Grey’s explosive summary of the current state of the ageing research field.

Show him the money

Professor Faragher, Chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing (BRSA), sees himself as more of a realist.

He wants to stick to current approaches, such as calorie-restriction (yes, that’s right, going hungry) and the drug rapamycin.

Professor Faragher was consistently scathing about SENS, which de Grey directs, arguing that centuries-long lifespans are nothing but a fantasy.

At first, the two men affably agreed that their views have much in common. They both believe that it is feasible and desirable to intervene with the ageing process and that ageing research is underfunded.

But that is where the similarities end…

The friendly facade soon gave way to a vitriolic attack by Faragher on de Grey and his views, as the claws well and truly came out.

At one point Faragher claimed that de Grey had impersonated a Cambridge don to gain support for the SENS foundation.

Faragher then described his opponent, rather snidely, as a ‘computer technician’. He compared de Grey’s book, ‘Ending Aging’ to science fiction, dismissing its content as utter fantasy.

Science or fiction?

After what was clearly a huge personality clash, with associated mud-slinging, the audience almost unanimously voted that ageing research needs more funding.

However, Aubrey de Grey’s approach to research received far fewer votes than Richard Faragher’s, which was just a little bit awkward.

The debate perhaps raised more questions than it answered; a clear result was the bruising of egos, notably de Grey’s.

Let us know your views by commenting below.