Curing Aging With Gene Therapy by Liz Parrish - Essay

BioViva Sciences aims to address the diseases of aging with gene therapy. Incorporated in 2015, it is the first company to tackle biological aging at the genetic level. Current research points to the process of cellular degeneration from biological aging as the root cause of most of the chronic diseases in the developed world.

Treating aging itself, rather than one disease at a time, would allow us to radically extend healthy lifespan (see graph 1; Source: R. A. Miller/University of Michigan). Prof. Miller’s research shows that if we cured cancer today, we would only increase lifespan by a few years since people would still die from other age-related diseases. However, if we could slow down aging itself, we would conservatively add 30 to 40 healthy years to the average lifespan.

Graph 1 - This table above, shows, how big of a difference, slowing down aging, can have on all of our lives. Clearly, slowing down aging, will make a much bigger difference, than curing any number of chronic diseases.

Right now, there are more people on the planet over the age of 65 than children under 5 years of age. As the population ages and more people live longer than 80 years, the cost of medical care for the elderly is becoming unsustainable. According to the Whitehouse’s Council of Economic Advisers, healthcare spending will skyrocket from more than 15% of the national budget today to over 40% by 2040 (see graph 2). These are catastrophic projections for our economy. It is predicted that aging will be the biggest killer in every nation by 2050. We cannot continue to treat symptoms like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease any longer. They are all the results of decrepit cells. We have thrown enough money at the old approach. It hasn’t worked.

It is time to get to the bottom of these problems.