WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.920 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Adelaide Festival of Ideas and today's session, Immortality. 2 00:00:07.220 --> 00:00:07.840 Really? 3 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:13.040 My name's Paul Willis, I'm the Director of the Royal Institution of Australia just across 4 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:17.600 Pirrie Street here, and it's my pleasure to be your host for this session. 5 00:00:18.560 --> 00:00:21.000 A few housekeeping rules before we start. 6 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:25.880 If you have a mobile phone, please switch it to silent. 7 00:00:26.620 --> 00:00:31.680 If it does go off during a performance that I host, I do insist that you buy a beer for 8 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:32.040 everybody. 9 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:35.200 So if you're feeling rich, leave it on. 10 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:43.900 You're most welcome to tweet through this particular performance, and the tweet name 11 00:00:43.900 --> 00:00:52.800 that you need to include is at Ideas Adelaide, one word, and hashtag is hash A-F-O-I, all 12 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:53.660 uppercase. 13 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:55.780 There are some evaluations. 14 00:00:55.880 --> 00:00:56.420 There are evaluation forms. 15 00:00:57.040 --> 00:01:02.480 If there's not an evaluation form on your seat, there are evaluation forms outside on 16 00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:07.940 a table, and I would appreciate it if you were to take the time at the conclusion of 17 00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:10.140 this session to fill out an evaluation form. 18 00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:14.840 It makes life a lot easier for us when it comes to organising future events. 19 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:19.360 And I'd like to put a quick plug in for the Royal Institution of Australia. 20 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:25.860 I've only been the Director since May, and it inspires me that Adelaide is a place where 21 00:01:25.880 --> 00:01:25.920 we can all come together and talk about the world. 22 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:31.600 Adelaide has such a wonderful institution at its disposal for engaging the Australian 23 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:33.020 population with science. 24 00:01:33.880 --> 00:01:39.660 If you want somewhere to come along and think and meet inspiring people and discuss inspiring 25 00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:44.360 ideas, then I would strongly suggest you come and visit us at the Royal Institution 26 00:01:44.360 --> 00:01:48.000 of Australia, as I said, just opposite Pranzo's. 27 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:49.420 Everyone knows where Pranzo's is. 28 00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:51.060 No one knows where the Royal Institution is. 29 00:01:54.080 --> 00:01:54.680 Immortality. 30 00:01:56.440 --> 00:02:01.040 It's said that there really is only one certainty in life, and that's death. 31 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:07.340 The idea that taxes are inevitable has been shown to be wrong by several rich people. 32 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:16.500 And death itself may no longer be inevitable, and it will probably be those same rich people 33 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:24.860 who will be leading the way, using new technologies to extend life, not just on biblical proportions 34 00:02:24.860 --> 00:02:25.860 of hundreds of millions of dollars, but on the whole. 35 00:02:25.880 --> 00:02:28.740 But perhaps to a thousand years. 36 00:02:30.340 --> 00:02:37.240 Perhaps today, people will be able, being born today will be living to 150 to 200 years, 37 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:43.040 and within our lifetimes, someone will be born who may live to a thousand years of age. 38 00:02:43.180 --> 00:02:46.660 Is that not an inspiring and terrifying thought? 39 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:52.160 What would it actually be like living for a thousand years? 40 00:02:52.600 --> 00:02:55.860 And what effect will it have on the underlying? 41 00:02:55.880 --> 00:02:57.440 What effect will it have on the underlying? 42 00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:00.100 What rights do we have to live for a thousand years? 43 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:03.440 There are so many questions that arise out of this, 44 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:06.940 and we have a wonderful panel to discuss these matters. 45 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:11.620 Please would you welcome Professor Fiona Wood, Dr. Brad Partridge, 46 00:03:11.820 --> 00:03:14.440 and Professor Julian Sabalescu. 47 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:24.720 To start the discussions, 48 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:30.300 Professor Fiona Wood will be familiar to you all from many stages, 49 00:03:30.420 --> 00:03:36.700 not least as the 2005 Australian of the Year, largely in recognition for her work 50 00:03:36.700 --> 00:03:42.540 with burns victims from the Bali bombings and other tragedies, but also as a judge 51 00:03:42.540 --> 00:03:46.200 from the New Inventors on the ABC, and of course, 52 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:52.620 as the Reader's Digest voted most trusted Australian. 53 00:03:53.880 --> 00:03:55.860 I understand that that's a little bit of a stretch, but I'm sure it will be a stretch. 54 00:03:56.780 --> 00:03:57.300 Professor Fiona Wood will be familiar to you all from many stages, 55 00:03:57.300 --> 00:03:58.660 not least as the Reader's Digest voted most trusted Australian. 56 00:03:58.660 --> 00:04:04.900 Would you please welcome Professor Fiona Wood. 57 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:09.580 Professor Fiona Wood will be familiar to you all from many stages, 58 00:04:09.580 --> 00:04:12.300 Thank you very much, Spundeth Paul, and thank you, RIOs, 59 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:16.220 for asking me to come along today and be part 60 00:04:16.220 --> 00:04:19.160 of this extremely challenging discussion. 61 00:04:19.700 --> 00:04:22.800 And as you heard, I'm from the medical end of the spectrum, 62 00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:25.560 and what is it that I can put 63 00:04:25.560 --> 00:04:29.680 on the table today, and so when I think back and look back at the changes 64 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:36.920 that have brought us to 2011 and the changes in our quality of life 65 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:39.780 and the environment that we enjoy, from a health perspective, 66 00:04:40.060 --> 00:04:43.420 I think the vast changes have come really around population health, 67 00:04:43.540 --> 00:04:47.180 clean water, clean food, infection control around vaccinations. 68 00:04:47.520 --> 00:04:51.820 All those things have changed our longevity over history and over time. 69 00:04:52.180 --> 00:04:55.420 But when you look down the sort of the other, 70 00:04:55.560 --> 00:05:01.400 direction into the crystal ball and try and think about what's it going to be like in our future, 71 00:05:01.520 --> 00:05:05.440 I think we've got some ideas and snippets of, 72 00:05:05.460 --> 00:05:07.420 and sort of sniffs of what it could be like. 73 00:05:07.900 --> 00:05:13.500 Understanding our genetics will give us opportunities to tailor healthcare 74 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:17.740 in such a way that maybe we could change the outcomes considerably 75 00:05:18.420 --> 00:05:20.720 from things that we know today are so devastating, 76 00:05:21.100 --> 00:05:24.080 and in particular, cancer and injury. 77 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:25.300 And so, 78 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:29.360 can we understand how some people who were injured were predisposed to infection 79 00:05:29.900 --> 00:05:33.060 and a much worse outcome, and therefore, change that. 80 00:05:33.440 --> 00:05:38.200 I think the work in HIV has demonstrated that very clearly. 81 00:05:38.380 --> 00:05:40.900 That if you understand a genetic predisposition, 82 00:05:41.060 --> 00:05:44.940 you could treat much more appropriately with less side effects 83 00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:46.740 and better quality outcomes. 84 00:05:47.140 --> 00:05:48.760 So, how can this go forward? 85 00:05:50.200 --> 00:05:53.980 For 20 years of my life, I've been looking at regeneration, skin regeneration. 86 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:59.220 I see scarring every day. I see people's bodies change devastatingly every day. 87 00:05:59.380 --> 00:06:03.100 And I just think, well, you know, we've got to be able to do something better than that. 88 00:06:03.300 --> 00:06:06.900 And lizards can grow new tails, but they, you know, why can't we? 89 00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:08.260 Maybe we just don't want a tail. 90 00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:13.680 And lizards, even though regenerate, don't live to be a thousand. 91 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:21.340 But is there some way that we can look at our understanding of self-organization and tissue regeneration 92 00:06:21.340 --> 00:06:25.880 such that we can change the way we age? 93 00:06:26.080 --> 00:06:30.240 Such that we can use that technology in repairing ourselves 94 00:06:30.760 --> 00:06:33.600 and repair ourselves against normal wear and tear. 95 00:06:34.260 --> 00:06:40.820 Every day we get knocks and bumps and, you know, it's just the wear of aging on our knee joints or whatever. 96 00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:47.520 By understanding how we can treat pathology, will we change the way we can live? 97 00:06:49.140 --> 00:06:51.320 And I think that's really what's on the table. 98 00:06:51.340 --> 00:06:57.400 And the responsibility that with every opportunity there's responsibility. 99 00:06:57.660 --> 00:07:03.720 And I was in the three-minute thesis competition from our university students across Australia last week. 100 00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:10.160 And in one of the presentations, one PhD student had demonstrated quite categorically 101 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:18.920 that in an animal model, preconception nutrition, both excessive and starvation, 102 00:07:19.200 --> 00:07:20.360 influenced, 103 00:07:21.340 --> 00:07:26.700 the offspring's health in terms of diabetic rates, in terms of heart disease rates. 104 00:07:27.060 --> 00:07:32.020 So the responsibility we have goes way beyond our personal responsibility 105 00:07:32.020 --> 00:07:34.700 to the responsibility, I think, of the whole. 106 00:07:35.140 --> 00:07:37.380 So there's one thing for certain for me. 107 00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:44.380 I think in a thousand years, those beings of the time will enjoy looking at our lack of knowledge and sophistication 108 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:48.760 and say the equivalent of, my God, they thought the world was flat. 109 00:07:49.280 --> 00:07:49.880 What? 110 00:07:50.020 --> 00:07:50.720 You know? 111 00:07:50.740 --> 00:07:51.280 What? 112 00:07:51.340 --> 00:07:52.780 What will they say about us? 113 00:07:53.640 --> 00:07:55.020 Are we at a crossroads? 114 00:07:55.060 --> 00:08:00.220 And as those clouds part and we see those opportunities become apparent, 115 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:06.280 are we going to work on a solution collectively with equal responsibility? 116 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:10.980 Or are we just going to walk away and blame them, whoever they are, 117 00:08:11.540 --> 00:08:13.420 for making the wrong decisions? 118 00:08:14.660 --> 00:08:16.740 I'm here today because I'm interested in this. 119 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:19.320 I'm interested in it for my children, my grandchildren, and those behind. 120 00:08:19.660 --> 00:08:21.320 I'm interested in it because of our planet. 121 00:08:21.320 --> 00:08:22.920 I hope that you are too. 122 00:08:23.060 --> 00:08:23.660 Thank you. 123 00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:31.860 Next up, Dr. Brad Partridge, with a background in psychology 124 00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:38.360 that's led him into research in public attitudes towards a range of new areas of research and technology, 125 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:44.060 as well as public health and bioethical implications of those developments. 126 00:08:44.800 --> 00:08:47.860 From the National Health and Medical Research Center, 127 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:51.300 he's a postgraduate research fellow in public health, 128 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:53.180 at the University of Queensland. 129 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:55.880 Please would you welcome Dr. Brad Partridge. 130 00:08:58.400 --> 00:08:59.300 Thanks, Paul. 131 00:09:00.620 --> 00:09:04.860 I think, firstly, I want to say, when we're talking about immortality, 132 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:09.080 we could probably make a distinction between immortality in the sense that 133 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:11.620 you could never die of anything. 134 00:09:11.780 --> 00:09:17.660 You're invulnerable to all kinds of things that could put you out of existence, 135 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:19.660 versus life extension. 136 00:09:19.940 --> 00:09:21.300 Now, we don't have to be... 137 00:09:21.300 --> 00:09:21.660 We don't have to be immortal. 138 00:09:21.880 --> 00:09:25.120 We could have lifespans that are very long indeed. 139 00:09:25.380 --> 00:09:29.960 And the idea that we could live to 150 or perhaps 1,000 years or beyond 140 00:09:30.640 --> 00:09:32.720 is an interesting one to look at. 141 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:37.660 I think 150 is going to be a little bit more doable than 1,000. 142 00:09:38.280 --> 00:09:42.780 But there are a lot of very enthusiastic people in the life extension debate 143 00:09:42.780 --> 00:09:47.320 who would say, look, 1,000 years, that's just around the corner. 144 00:09:47.400 --> 00:09:51.280 And the idea that the first person to live to 1,000 years, 145 00:09:51.300 --> 00:09:52.060 might be alive today, 146 00:09:52.680 --> 00:09:56.320 well, that just depends on how quickly we can develop these technologies. 147 00:09:56.840 --> 00:10:00.680 Now, it all depends on how we can develop things 148 00:10:00.680 --> 00:10:03.660 that are going to help us slow the ageing process. 149 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:08.340 Now, the quest for a technology that's going to do that 150 00:10:08.340 --> 00:10:10.020 has a pretty old history. 151 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:14.920 I think one of the most interesting things to look at is... 152 00:10:14.920 --> 00:10:18.240 Fiona mentioned some technologies around rejuvenation. 153 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:21.120 Well, what about something like calorie restriction? 154 00:10:21.300 --> 00:10:24.320 Now, there have been a lot of studies that show that 155 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:27.340 putting animals on a calorie-restricted diet 156 00:10:27.340 --> 00:10:31.460 actually helps them age slower and live a lot longer. 157 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:34.200 And we've known this since about the 1930s. 158 00:10:34.300 --> 00:10:36.740 This actually happens with a whole host of species. 159 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:39.680 When you feed them about 50% fewer calories, 160 00:10:39.740 --> 00:10:42.740 still with all the nutritional requirements they need, 161 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:44.240 they actually live a lot longer. 162 00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:47.640 So the question is, could this actually work with humans? 163 00:10:48.140 --> 00:10:51.280 Now, some people voluntarily put themselves on a diet, 164 00:10:51.300 --> 00:10:52.660 on a calorie-restricted diet. 165 00:10:52.900 --> 00:10:56.380 You might not be surprised to know that a lot of these people are in America. 166 00:10:56.520 --> 00:10:59.520 They're part of the Caloric Restriction Society of America. 167 00:10:59.960 --> 00:11:03.380 They voluntarily eat a very, very small amount of food 168 00:11:03.380 --> 00:11:05.040 in the hope that this is going to produce 169 00:11:05.040 --> 00:11:07.620 these calorie-restriction life-extending effects. 170 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:13.160 Unfortunately, some of the side effects of this calorie-restricted diet 171 00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:18.100 are very lean muscle, they have very bony bums, these people. 172 00:11:18.220 --> 00:11:20.780 There's no muscle. It kind of hurts to sit down. 173 00:11:21.300 --> 00:11:26.140 And it also sort of does funny tricks with their libido. 174 00:11:26.180 --> 00:11:29.400 They tend to sort of not be so interested in that kind of thing anymore. 175 00:11:30.060 --> 00:11:34.300 So maybe a calorie-restricted diet isn't going to be for everybody. 176 00:11:34.580 --> 00:11:36.720 And the idea that you're going to have to eat a lot less, 177 00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:39.860 well, in today's modern world, that's not that appealing. 178 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.260 But the good news is that there's a lot of research going on 179 00:11:44.260 --> 00:11:47.660 in developing a pharmaceutical pill that could actually mimic 180 00:11:47.660 --> 00:11:50.800 the life-extending effects of calorie restriction. 181 00:11:51.300 --> 00:11:53.500 Without you actually having to eat any less. 182 00:11:53.860 --> 00:11:59.000 So this is the kind of ultimate have your cake and eat it too kind of technology. 183 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:04.140 Maybe we'll develop pharmaceuticals that are called calorie-restriction memetics 184 00:12:04.140 --> 00:12:07.700 that we could just sort of take and this will help us slow aging. 185 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:10.300 Now, this kind of sounds a little bit funny, 186 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:13.200 but there are pharmaceutical companies at the moment 187 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:15.860 who are trying to develop these calorie-restriction memetics. 188 00:12:16.540 --> 00:12:19.240 One of them called Sertris Pharmaceuticals 189 00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:21.280 was purchased a couple of years ago 190 00:12:21.300 --> 00:12:25.660 by GlaxoSmithKline for about $750 million. 191 00:12:26.140 --> 00:12:27.600 So big biggies here. 192 00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:30.340 They're quite serious about developing this kind of thing. 193 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:34.860 Now, some researchers have said that an effective calorie-restriction memetic 194 00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:39.240 might be able to extend our lifespan to 140, 150 years 195 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:43.280 and maybe produce 90-year-olds that look like 50-year-olds. 196 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:46.660 So what we thought would be a good idea to do 197 00:12:46.660 --> 00:12:51.280 is ask people what they would actually think about living to 150 years slowed aging. 198 00:12:51.300 --> 00:12:54.340 So some of the research we did at University of Queensland 199 00:12:54.340 --> 00:12:55.520 was doing just that. 200 00:12:55.620 --> 00:12:57.180 We did some surveys with people, 201 00:12:57.380 --> 00:13:00.480 did some interviews, some focus groups with different people 202 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:02.780 that we thought might have different perspectives on this 203 00:13:03.300 --> 00:13:07.380 and asked them, would you want to live to 150 with slowed aging? 204 00:13:07.800 --> 00:13:09.500 The results were kind of interesting. 205 00:13:09.660 --> 00:13:14.260 We got about 65% of people saying that they'd support that kind of research 206 00:13:14.260 --> 00:13:19.820 and only about 35% of people saying that they'd take the pharmaceutical pill 207 00:13:19.820 --> 00:13:21.280 that could help them live to 150. 208 00:13:22.680 --> 00:13:26.340 Interestingly, men were much more in favour of this kind of thing than women. 209 00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:29.880 So read into that while you will. 210 00:13:31.820 --> 00:13:34.720 But this kind of runs against a few assumptions 211 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:38.160 that people in the ethical debate have about life extension 212 00:13:38.160 --> 00:13:43.300 and there are very strong pro and con viewpoints on this. 213 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:46.440 Some people say that this is really going against nature. 214 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:50.180 Other people say, look, we really need a war on aging. 215 00:13:50.260 --> 00:13:51.280 This is just a barbaric idea. 216 00:13:51.300 --> 00:13:56.220 It's not barbaric that people would still say it's okay for you to die of aging 217 00:13:56.220 --> 00:13:57.960 but not of other causes. 218 00:13:59.800 --> 00:14:02.280 Now, the thing is in the bioethical debate, 219 00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:05.500 people have assumptions about what the public is going to think about this. 220 00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:07.920 Some people say, well, everyone's going to be horrified 221 00:14:07.920 --> 00:14:11.360 and other people say, well, look, everybody's going to jump at this 222 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:13.080 first chance they get. 223 00:14:14.100 --> 00:14:18.140 And what's interesting about public attitudes towards this kind of thing 224 00:14:18.140 --> 00:14:21.060 is they're actually seen as one of the major impediments 225 00:14:21.300 --> 00:14:24.820 to developing potential life extension technologies. 226 00:14:25.220 --> 00:14:28.220 And that's because people who are enthusiastic about life extension 227 00:14:28.220 --> 00:14:30.840 think that everybody's really against this 228 00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:33.440 and that if it's going to actually progress, 229 00:14:33.560 --> 00:14:35.140 if we're actually going to get the technologies, 230 00:14:35.380 --> 00:14:37.360 we need to get public support on board. 231 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:39.500 So I might just finish up there. 232 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:45.160 Don't know about you, but the thought of living for 150 years 233 00:14:45.160 --> 00:14:47.680 without cheese, good food and libido, 234 00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:50.100 that's a new definition of hell, surely. 235 00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:52.600 We'll explore that in just a moment, 236 00:14:52.780 --> 00:14:55.500 but please, the next speaker that we have 237 00:14:56.300 --> 00:15:00.720 is the director of the Oxford Centre of Neuroethics 238 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:03.000 and the Institute for Science and Ethics. 239 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:08.860 He's the Professor of Practical Ethics 240 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:13.120 at the Uhiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford 241 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:18.300 and the Sir Lewis Matheson Distinguished Professor at Monash University, 242 00:15:19.860 --> 00:15:20.900 with a... 243 00:15:21.300 --> 00:15:24.160 He's recognised as a leading commentator in the media 244 00:15:24.160 --> 00:15:27.860 regarding ethical issues arising from the creation 245 00:15:27.860 --> 00:15:30.760 of the first living cell from synthetic materials. 246 00:15:31.220 --> 00:15:34.240 So with a very strong background on the ethical issues, 247 00:15:34.380 --> 00:15:37.320 would you please welcome Professor Julian Suvalescu. 248 00:15:43.180 --> 00:15:45.820 So it's... Let's go forward to the future. 249 00:15:45.900 --> 00:15:49.540 It's 2013. We've had bird flu and swine flu. 250 00:15:50.160 --> 00:15:51.280 But now a virus. 251 00:15:51.300 --> 00:15:55.560 A very rare form of flu emerges from the Tasmanian devil from Australia. 252 00:15:55.880 --> 00:15:59.200 And this is an extremely contagious and lethal flu 253 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:03.100 and in the next year it kills 30 million people. 254 00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:05.120 Now, just to put that into perspective, 255 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:08.840 the great Spanish flu of 1918 killed 20 million people. 256 00:16:09.400 --> 00:16:12.720 Now, what should we do with the Tasmanian devil flu? 257 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:16.080 Should we just allow nature to take its course? 258 00:16:16.340 --> 00:16:16.980 Of course not. 259 00:16:17.180 --> 00:16:19.980 We'd spend billions, trillions of dollars 260 00:16:19.980 --> 00:16:23.020 in an attempt to deal with a pandemic 261 00:16:23.020 --> 00:16:25.400 that was killing 30 million people per year. 262 00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:28.080 Look how much money we spent on Tamiflu. 263 00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:30.480 And there was no epidemic at all. 264 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:34.720 Now, there is at the moment no Tasmanian devil flu, 265 00:16:34.900 --> 00:16:39.180 but ageing kills 30 million people per year. 266 00:16:39.920 --> 00:16:43.720 100,000 people die every day from ageing. 267 00:16:44.820 --> 00:16:48.200 150... And a further 50,000 people die from other causes. 268 00:16:48.420 --> 00:16:49.960 Ageing is by far the biggest cause of death. 269 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:51.040 It's the biggest killer of people. 270 00:16:51.380 --> 00:16:53.700 The diseases that you will all die of 271 00:16:53.700 --> 00:16:56.600 are actually the symptoms of ageing. 272 00:16:56.960 --> 00:17:02.700 Cardiovascular disease, cancer, Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes, 273 00:17:03.040 --> 00:17:08.160 all of these diseases are actually the symptoms of an underlying disease, 274 00:17:08.540 --> 00:17:10.800 and that is the disease of ageing. 275 00:17:11.080 --> 00:17:13.820 Why don't 10-year-old children... 276 00:17:13.820 --> 00:17:18.100 Of course, they do develop very rare forms of childhood malignancies, 277 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:19.240 but they don't have heart attacks, 278 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:21.760 and don't develop the common forms of cancer, 279 00:17:21.900 --> 00:17:24.500 because their body hasn't started to age yet. 280 00:17:24.580 --> 00:17:26.620 You've heard this figure of 1,000 years. 281 00:17:27.080 --> 00:17:30.780 That's what the projected lifespan of somebody would be 282 00:17:30.780 --> 00:17:34.020 if they had the ageing of a 10-year-old child, 283 00:17:34.280 --> 00:17:37.980 and they didn't die of an accident or war or some other injury. 284 00:17:38.840 --> 00:17:41.700 So the big picture on this perspective is, 285 00:17:41.780 --> 00:17:44.240 why don't we care about ageing? 286 00:17:44.620 --> 00:17:49.000 Why don't we invest the sorts of resources that we invest on treating flu, 287 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:51.140 or treating cancer or heart disease? 288 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:55.040 Why don't we recognise that we're really treating the symptoms 289 00:17:55.040 --> 00:17:59.840 of the underlying disease of ageing that affects the human condition? 290 00:18:00.100 --> 00:18:03.360 Because there is no reason that humans have to age. 291 00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:09.320 We've seen already in other species, organisms that don't age. 292 00:18:09.860 --> 00:18:13.620 There's a jellyfish called Pteroptysis, which is immortal. 293 00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:17.180 Turtles lived for 150 years 294 00:18:17.180 --> 00:18:18.980 because they have very effective anti-aging, 295 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:20.220 anti-aging mechanisms. 296 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:23.700 We've been able to genetically engineer mice 297 00:18:23.700 --> 00:18:26.900 to live twice as long as normal mice. 298 00:18:27.340 --> 00:18:29.080 There's no reason in principle why, 299 00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:32.420 in addition to using regenerative medicine and stem cell therapy, 300 00:18:32.600 --> 00:18:35.500 we couldn't understand the basic biology of ageing 301 00:18:35.500 --> 00:18:38.380 and attack the disease at its root cause. 302 00:18:39.080 --> 00:18:41.980 In fact, we spend very little money on ageing research, 303 00:18:42.180 --> 00:18:46.120 and I think this is the greatest scandal of modern medical research. 304 00:18:46.500 --> 00:18:48.540 A number of years ago, someone surveyed 305 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:49.840 the National Institutes of Health, 306 00:18:49.900 --> 00:18:52.320 the most prestigious research body in the world. 307 00:18:52.600 --> 00:18:59.060 It spent 0.02% of its budget on fundamental anti-ageing research. 308 00:18:59.800 --> 00:19:02.240 There are a number of reasons for this, which I don't want to go into. 309 00:19:02.580 --> 00:19:05.200 But ethically, it's an outrage, it's a scandal. 310 00:19:05.340 --> 00:19:08.280 It's as if letting the Tasmanian devil flu 311 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:12.700 continue to kill 30 million people per year, every year. 312 00:19:13.780 --> 00:19:16.280 That's far more people that die in any war, 313 00:19:16.280 --> 00:19:23.640 far more people that died in either of the major world conflicts last century. 314 00:19:24.080 --> 00:19:28.660 So the first point I want to say is that the big ethical issue 315 00:19:28.660 --> 00:19:31.660 is why we don't have a war on ageing 316 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:34.220 as we've had a war on terror and cancer. 317 00:19:35.180 --> 00:19:37.100 Now, people raise philosophical objections. 318 00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:42.480 One of them would be life would become mundane or boring if we were old. 319 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:45.160 There's in fact no empirical evidence to support this. 320 00:19:46.280 --> 00:19:50.940 Survey after survey of people across the ages show that, if anything, 321 00:19:51.220 --> 00:19:55.980 life satisfaction and happiness slightly increase as people get older. 322 00:19:56.360 --> 00:20:01.120 The things that cause people to be unhappy or dissatisfied with their lives 323 00:20:01.120 --> 00:20:03.920 are diseases, illnesses and disabilities, 324 00:20:04.120 --> 00:20:07.440 not the mere fact that they're 80, 90 or 100. 325 00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:12.120 In fact, if you look at the surveys of happiness and life satisfaction, 326 00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:16.060 they're a U-shaped curve with a low point, 327 00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:17.380 and about in the 40s. 328 00:20:18.020 --> 00:20:20.280 And then they increase as you get older. 329 00:20:20.500 --> 00:20:24.480 So there's no evidence that people find life boring or uninteresting, 330 00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:27.320 though they find disease and disability painful 331 00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:30.440 and want to be rid of it. 332 00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:35.180 Another issue is how long each generation should live 333 00:20:35.180 --> 00:20:39.040 and what obligations we owe to future generations. 334 00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:41.620 Whatever these obligations are, 335 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:45.860 they must be fairly weak when compared to the interests of our generation, 336 00:20:45.860 --> 00:20:49.440 because none of us thinks we have an obligation to have children. 337 00:20:50.520 --> 00:20:54.320 Now, Brad mentioned the attitudes of the public. 338 00:20:55.020 --> 00:21:00.740 Imagine that I develop a pill that slows down the ageing process, 339 00:21:00.940 --> 00:21:04.340 so you no longer age but die at a certain point. 340 00:21:05.360 --> 00:21:10.420 So you can pick exactly at what point you want to just die quickly 341 00:21:10.420 --> 00:21:13.740 of so-called natural causes, once the pill stops having its effect. 342 00:21:14.460 --> 00:21:15.380 So you could... 343 00:21:15.380 --> 00:21:20.640 You could choose to dial up an age of 100, 150, 200 or more. 344 00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:24.960 How many people would choose to live 100 years or less? 345 00:21:24.980 --> 00:21:25.620 Show of hands. 346 00:21:26.520 --> 00:21:30.140 How many people would choose between 100 and 150? 347 00:21:30.820 --> 00:21:33.060 How many people would choose 150 to 200? 348 00:21:33.740 --> 00:21:34.720 More than 200. 349 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:37.480 OK. 350 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:39.300 Well, as you said, there's a distribution. 351 00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:41.840 But the important point is, 352 00:21:41.940 --> 00:21:44.440 how many of you think that your view should determine 353 00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:45.800 what other people do with that pill? 354 00:21:46.020 --> 00:21:49.340 And that surely is the most fundamental point 355 00:21:49.340 --> 00:21:51.720 to start with in this ethical discussion. 356 00:21:52.600 --> 00:21:56.940 Surely it's up to us to decide how long each of us lives. 357 00:21:57.220 --> 00:21:59.520 The only good objection to this 358 00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:02.320 is somehow we consume more than our fair share of resources. 359 00:22:02.860 --> 00:22:05.300 We have too big a carbon footprint. 360 00:22:05.560 --> 00:22:07.680 It's the kind of common kind of concern. 361 00:22:07.820 --> 00:22:11.600 We're chewing up too much of the world's limited resources. 362 00:22:11.740 --> 00:22:14.360 Those are reasons to limit people's age. 363 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:17.640 But we don't yet know at what point, 364 00:22:18.220 --> 00:22:20.560 at what level of population, 365 00:22:20.800 --> 00:22:23.180 what size of population and what length of life 366 00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:25.720 is ethically most optimal. 367 00:22:26.020 --> 00:22:27.200 Until we find that point, 368 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:30.400 surely it's not we don't have an obligation 369 00:22:30.980 --> 00:22:33.740 to die or to impose death on other people. 370 00:22:33.940 --> 00:22:35.520 That's precisely what we do 371 00:22:35.520 --> 00:22:37.880 when we fail to prosecute a war on ageing. 372 00:22:38.660 --> 00:22:42.280 So I'll finish by saying that we have within us 373 00:22:42.280 --> 00:22:43.440 the capacity to... 374 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:47.600 ..to defeat ageing by fundamental basic research 375 00:22:47.600 --> 00:22:50.380 on the processes that causes cells to age 376 00:22:50.380 --> 00:22:52.460 through regenerative medicine and so on. 377 00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:54.580 And I think it's an urgent and ethical priority 378 00:22:54.580 --> 00:22:56.020 that we pursue this. Thank you. 379 00:22:57.960 --> 00:22:59.260 Perhaps in the discussion, 380 00:23:00.340 --> 00:23:02.320 let's start from the most basic question. 381 00:23:02.540 --> 00:23:03.500 Why do we age? 382 00:23:03.760 --> 00:23:06.000 I mean, our cells, as long as we're alive, 383 00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:08.060 continue to divide and renew. 384 00:23:08.560 --> 00:23:11.600 So why do we wear out? 385 00:23:11.660 --> 00:23:13.400 Why do we age? 386 00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:15.200 What's the science of ageing? 387 00:23:15.660 --> 00:23:16.280 Fiona. 388 00:23:18.220 --> 00:23:21.940 Well, I'd be stepping outside my area of expertise here. 389 00:23:22.180 --> 00:23:27.160 And I see that, for me, trauma, repeated trauma, 390 00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:29.920 is associated with a secondary sequelae 391 00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:32.420 that in repairing that trauma, 392 00:23:32.660 --> 00:23:36.800 the quality of the repair is downgraded, if you like. 393 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:41.660 And I know that in our data linkage research 394 00:23:41.660 --> 00:23:43.060 that we can see there's an increase 395 00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:45.160 in incidence of cancer associated with trauma. 396 00:23:45.420 --> 00:23:47.880 We see that with sun trauma and melanoma. 397 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:49.840 So we see that trauma... 398 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:53.000 ..that sort of the external wear and tear 399 00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:55.360 has an impact on the cellular function 400 00:23:55.360 --> 00:23:56.900 as the cells are stressed. 401 00:23:57.480 --> 00:23:59.700