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The greatest investment opportunity in history Jim Mellon is an optimist. Which is just as well, since he is one of the people trying to engineer a complete transformation in attitudes towards aging – attitudes within the medical profession, among the public at large, and crucially, in the investment community. As an example of his optimism, Mellon says that, thanks largely to the vertiginous advances in artificial intelligence, “if you can stay alive for another ten to twenty years, and if you aren’t yet over 75, and if you remain in reasonable health for your age, you have an excellent...

For several years we have been hearing about the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve traditional drug discovery and development. In the last two years, clinical trials have begun. The UK’s Exscientia made headlines last April by announcing the start of a Phase 1 clinical trial for a drug it designed using AI for an established protein target. Recursion Pharmaceuticals in Utah uses AI to find new uses for the drugs owned by other companies. Insilico Medicine has now announced the crucial next step: the start of the world’s first Phase 1 clinical trial of a drug developed from...

“Not proper science” The field of longevity medicine is coming alive. Until the last few years, the project of halting and reversing aging was not seen as “proper science”, and not a fit use for public funds. Aging was seen as an inevitable and permanent part of the human condition. It was not a disease, but a vulnerability to disease which grows over time, and cannot be redressed. People who argued the contrary were viewed by the medical establishment as entertaining mavericks at best, disreputable charlatans at worst. The sneering has not entirely disappeared, but today there is significant investment...

In the tenth anniversary year of the Big Bang in AI we will see better drug discovery processes, better diagnostics, and better understanding of human biology. Tenth anniversary of AI’s Big Bang Next year will see the tenth anniversary of the Big Bang in artificial intelligence (AI). In September 2012, a team led by Geoff Hinton won an annual image recognition competition called ImageNet, using a type of silicon chip called graphics processing units (GPUs) and a type of algorithm called convolutional neural nets (CNNs). Hinton's team was not the first to use these techniques, but the margin of their...

The longevity "bug" Early in his medical career, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen spent six months working as a physician in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. It is a small town of fewer than 20,000 people, but he was enchanted, and almost didn't return to his native Denmark. We should be grateful that he did listen to the call of anti-aging research, and head back to Copenhagen: he went on to become one of the leading pioneers applying modern artificial intelligence (AI) to the field of longevity medicine. Scheibye-Knudsen caught the longevity "bug" as a teenager, appalled by watching his grandparents grow frail...

Workaholics Becoming a workaholic seems to be an occupational hazard among longevity researchers and advocates. A few weeks ago, Eva Bischof was involved in a serious accident, which gave her concussion, and badly injured her arm. Despite being a highly qualified doctor, the therapy she prescribed for herself was not bed rest - but work. You probably have to be a workaholic to secure the qualifications and the professional appointments on Bischof's CV. Especially if you come from humble origins: Bischof is the daughter of a tailor and an accountant's assistant, and she spent her summers in her grandparents' village,...

A man on a mission Alex Zhavoronkov is a man on a mission. He is extremely focused - some might say obsessive. He works 18 hours a day 365 days a year. He takes no holidays, and has no plans to start a family - unless he meets a potential partner who is at least as focused as himself. The subject of this relentless attention is the aging process – how to understand it, arrest it, and reverse it. In 2013, Zhavoronkov published a book called “The Ageless Generation” which argued that everyone over about 30 years old is effectively...

Michael Antonov caught “the longevity bug” after helping to found Oculus Rift, the virtual reality headgear company, and selling it to Facebook for $2.3bn. He went back to college and taught himself biochemistry, and now he invests in startups which are developing the tools to allow us to understand the fabulously complex mechanics of our bodies. Russian emigres What is it with Russians? If you throw a ball into the audience during a conference on aging there is a pretty good chance it will be caught by a Russian, or someone of Russian extraction. Michael Antonov attributes this partly to...

An Apple a day… Later this year, the 7th series of the phenomenally successful Apple Watch will be launched. The company has unveiled a new watch every September since 2015, and the cottage industry of Apple followers speculates that the series 7 will feature blood glucose measurement, using a relatively new technology of terahertz electromagnetic radiation. Blood glucose measurement is especially useful for diabetics. Blood alcohol measurement, and better sleep monitoring are also candidates for inclusion this time round. With the Watch, Apple has not simply added another device to its product line-up. CEO Tim Cook has lofty ambitions for...