IS TECHNOLOGY MAKING DEATH OPTIONAL?

The inevitability of aging may be no more than yet another biological theory that scientific advances will retire in the near future. Some scientists today say that longevity is a societal concept that we may no longer need to uphold as a static law of nature, but instead, as one that can be rewritten to our benefit.

Immortality is not exactly a myth that it is made out to be. Immortal organisms already exist. Turritopsis dohrnii is a jellyfish of Cnidarians family and like all members of this family it can regenerate. Not only can they recover from injuries but these jellyfish can carry out something impressive called transdifferentiation. In a nutshell, they can reprogram any of their cells to become a different type of cell, carrying out a different task than before. Some species of jellyfish have the ability to cycle back and forth from an adult stage into a youthful one(polyp), essentially becoming immortal. These processes are being closely studied and are believed to be the future of Regenerative medicine.

Hydras do not undergo senescence, which is another name for biological ageing. There are other organisms that seem to be able to regenerate indefinitely thanks to their adult stem cells, such as some species of flatworm. The salamander and the lizards can regenerate their lost tails and a snail if divided into two can regenerate into two snails! All these observations are of extreme interest to the researchers of Regenerative medicine and are paving our path to immortality!

Being biologically immortal isn’t very useful if there is still stuff that can kill you or injure you beyond repair. But that’s where extremophiles come in. They are organisms that can thrive in extreme conditions that would be detrimental to other life forms on Earth. Tardigrades, known as space bears are one such phylum. Studying some of them could also help us resist these conditions one day. There are uncountable examples and many different types. Some can resist extreme temperatures, lethal doses of radiation, living in acidic environments, unimaginable pressures, total drought or even the vacuum of space!

There are various factors that cause aging, namely telomere shortening, chronological aging, oxidative stress, and glycation. These factors need to be reduced, stopped or eliminated completely if we’re ever to live forever. Here are 11 potential technologies that could allow us to achieve immortality:

1. Regenerative blood transfusions

Scientists have identified a protein in young mice called GDF11. Although it’s very common in their blood, it’s much scarcer in older mice. The GDF11 protein has been shown to increase skeletal muscle and heart strength. As a result, scientists are now trying to figure out if the protein can be replicated and combined with synthesized blood in order for it to be used in regenerative blood transfusions that could potentially increase lifespan by 10 or 20 years.

2. Longevity pills

Work is ongoing on a pill that triggers an anti-aging enzyme in the human body named Sirtuin 1, which could extend human lifespan by up to 15%. A company named Elysium has already developed such a pill, which is thought to slow down the aging process. It represents the culmination of 25 years of research and now has now entered the human trials phase. It might be on pharmacists’ shelves sooner than anyone imagined.

3. Nanotechnology to fight cancer and repair damaged cells

Nanotech (i.e., microscopic machines and materials that can build and fix stuff) is quickly becoming to our culture what atomic energy was to the 1950s - a world-changing technology that, in science fiction stories, always creates monsters. It's easy to get carried away with what nanotechnology will be capable of. There will be limitations, just as there are with any technology. But it's also hard not to get excited.

Scientists have successfully used nanotech to repair optic nerves in blind hamsters by building a custom synthetic molecule that, when injected, arranges itself into a nanofiber to repair the nerve. They are working on nanorobots that would target and kill cancer cells like tiny hunter-killers.

Nanotechnology is an incredible field of research that has the potential to revolutionize the medical industry, among many others. Self-replicating nanorobots (or nanobots) have the potential to attack cancers cells in order to destroy them and perform repairs to the human body at the cellular level. The concept is sound; it's simply a more advanced, less invasive form of medicine that could someday detect and repair body disease and trauma at a cellular level. It would make today's surgeons look like clumsy cavemen.

4. Longevity gene identification and introduction

A centenarian study comprising two groups of centenarians, one containing 152 Spaniards and another containing 742 Japanese, managed to definitively identify several gene variations that were common to both groups. The effect of longevity genes has also been observed in gene therapy studies on yeast, which showed that it might be possible to increase lifespan by 25% using this technique.

5. Immortality through gene therapy

Telomerase is basically a ribonucleoprotein that allows DNA to continue to express itself in the human body in spite of the aging process. Gene therapy studies have shown that it’s possible to induce human cells to express telomerase, thus slowing down the biological clock. One such study, which is considered to be the “proof of principle” study for life extension through gene therapy, showed that it was possible to extend the lifespans of mice by as much as 25%.

6. Metamaterial bionics

Metamaterial is artificially-engineered material that has properties not usually seen in nature. Such material can be used to create artificial organs and augment existing ones to make people stronger and live longer than ever before. In fact, research into using these materials to replace defective human cochleas is already underway.

7. Robotic avatars for cybernetic immortality

There’s a growing consensus in the scientific community that it will be possible to save and upload copies of ourselves to be stored online in the near future. These virtual copies could then be installed into robotic bodies, or avatars, thus enabling us to live forever. 

8. Molecular manipulation

Researchers managed to extend the lifespan of some worms by manipulating molecules that affect insulin and other nutrient signals. Should this be replicated in humans, it might just be possible to extend human lifespan up to 500 years.

9. Suspended animation

A staple of science fiction films for many years, suspended animation could be a viable way of extending human life in the future. The process is actually called induced hypothermia, and it’s essentially the ability to freeze and revive people. As you can imagine, this process still needs to be perfect, because it can actually kill someone if the timing isn’t done correctly. Perfecting suspended animation could mean that humans could be put into hibernation forever.

10. 3D printing of organs

There’s no denying that 3D printing is developing incredibly fast, to the point where it will soon become viable to print replacement organs and body parts. A UK team, for instance, has successfully printed replacement corneas. It now remains to be seen whether 3D printing could be extended to fat and collagen so that human hearts can be made.

With artificial hearts, replacement limbs and artificial nerves, we are already rebuilding humans, albeit piecemeal, into cyborgs. Many of the limitations of these technologies like weight and durability of the materials and energy efficiency will go away with advances in technologies such as carbon nanotubes and metamaterials. Just as we built cars that can transport us faster than our legs, we will have replacement body parts that not only outperform our crappy natural organs but will be nigh invulnerable as well.

11. Organ cloning

There are two ideas at work here. The first is the prospect of manufacturing new, healthy, completely "you" organs to replace the crappy old parts you were born with, or even that next-generation organ you put in 30 years ago, whenever they start to get old. Obviously, most people die because a specific organ fails like the heart ir the kidneys.  So being able to replace parts like you would swap out transmissions on a car could extend life indefinitely, even if nothing else on this list comes to fruition. And organ-farming is the less morally ambiguous cloning method, since it simply requires cloning individual body parts.

The other method can pretty much count on the government giving us a green flag, because it would use a fully grown cloned body as the receptacle for the brain of an aging person so that person could effectively go from 70 to 20 with a single operation. As you might imagine, this has led to a certain level of squeamishness, since it would mean either effectively killing a cloned person for his body or raising a fully functioning body that was brain-dead from birth. All of this means that while it is certainly plausible, it is unlikely in the Western world. In the Eastern world, however, it may become a reality. Singapore and China seem to be less worried about the problems with human cloning, and are already working toward therapeutic human cloning.

So friends, immortality is not far away. It may be well within your reach!