146 replies to this topic

[gt35r]

I have never seen a thread as pessimistic and ill informed as this.

 

Calico is barely set up and you guys have already labeled them as a failure. Look I am all for SENS, if I won the lottery I would give every bit to SENS but to be this upset that CALICO may want to take a different approach to aging is so absurd. Would you prefer that Calico did not exist? 

 

I think SENS is the best framework for longevity and health but I would never be so absurd as to cast judgment on somebody (Calico) who may want to take a different approach on the challenge of aging. God forbid Calico only offer 20 -100 years, which is generous and no pharmaceutical company has ever made that claim. By the way, I suspect that the 20 - 100 year estimate is based on what project they can establish in the near future. Imagine biogerontology, 20 years ago, and now imagine is 20 years from now. 

Edited by gt35r, 16 August 2014 - 05:00 AM.

[Bluedot]

I definitely agree with gt35r here.

 

Whatever is not SENS-based in this forum is shot down really super fast. I, for one, would welcome ANY tech/interventions that would help me live longer so that I can take advantage of future biotech advances. But to be able to do that, one needs to be alive first! So I will gladly take the 20-100 extra years that Calico, or any other company, could give me. Think about it guys.

 

[Kalliste]

I have never seen a thread as pessimistic and ill informed as this.

 

Calico is barely set up and you guys have already labeled them as a failure. Look I am all for SENS, if I won the lottery I would give every bit to SENS but to be this upset that CALICO may want to take a different approach to aging is so absurd. Would you prefer that Calico did not exist? 

 

I think SENS is the best framework for longevity and health but I would never be so absurd as to cast judgment on somebody (Calico) who may want to take a different approach on the challenge of aging. God forbid Calico only offer 20 -100 years, which is generous and no pharmaceutical company has ever made that claim. By the way, I suspect that the 20 - 100 year estimate is based on what project they can establish in the near future. Imagine biogerontology, 20 years ago, and now imagine is 20 years from now. 

 

Care to explain why I'm ill-informed? I'm pessimistic because they have moved in a direction that will be costly and produce negligible results.

That does not mean I wish them out of existence, better they open the doors for longevity-research than not being there at all.

It's sad they did it like this because if you read stuff like the Schmidt Assange interview you realize the people behind Google are smart enough to be able to figure this out, but they did not.

Even if they, or some other billionaire come around to this in five years, those will be five wasted years.

 

http://wikileaks.org...ge-Schmidt.html

Edited by Cosmicalstorm, 16 August 2014 - 07:45 AM.

[niner]

It's naive in the extreme to think that Calico will achieve 100 year life extension without some kind of regeneration.  My hope is that they will move in a regenerative direction, my fear is that they will waste time with unproductive lines of research before they figure that out.  I'm absolutely not opposed to "curve squaring" interventions that might buy us anywhere from a few years to a decade or more.  That would be a great outcome, if Calico can pull it off.

[follies]

We want to stop aging. The obvious way to get there is to slow aging. Once we stop aging we will transform our bodies into vehicles that we can't even imagine.

[gt35r]

It's naive in the extreme to think that Calico will achieve 100 year life extension without some kind of regeneration.  My hope is that they will move in a regenerative direction, my fear is that they will waste time with unproductive lines of research before they figure that out.  I'm absolutely not opposed to "curve squaring" interventions that might buy us anywhere from a few years to a decade or more.  That would be a great outcome, if Calico can pull it off.

 

We don't even know what their plan is.

 

How do you guys know that  they don't have to plans to include research in any regenrative research? To mean th term regenerative research is very broad. In my opinion, of you can dissolve lipofuscin I would consider that regenrative; if you can dissolve amyloid plaques I consider that regenrative as well. Either way, Calico is inevitably going to have some, or alot, of overlap with SENS.

 

Yes, adding 100 years to life is I would argue imposssible without some regenrative medicine but the truth is we have no clue what their research is going to include.

[gt35r]

 

I have never seen a thread as pessimistic and ill informed as this.

 

Calico is barely set up and you guys have already labeled them as a failure. Look I am all for SENS, if I won the lottery I would give every bit to SENS but to be this upset that CALICO may want to take a different approach to aging is so absurd. Would you prefer that Calico did not exist? 

 

I think SENS is the best framework for longevity and health but I would never be so absurd as to cast judgment on somebody (Calico) who may want to take a different approach on the challenge of aging. God forbid Calico only offer 20 -100 years, which is generous and no pharmaceutical company has ever made that claim. By the way, I suspect that the 20 - 100 year estimate is based on what project they can establish in the near future. Imagine biogerontology, 20 years ago, and now imagine is 20 years from now. 

 

Care to explain why I'm ill-informed? I'm pessimistic because they have moved in a direction that will be costly and produce negligible results.

That does not mean I wish them out of existence, better they open the doors for longevity-research than not being there at all.

It's sad they did it like this because if you read stuff like the Schmidt Assange interview you realize the people behind Google are smart enough to be able to figure this out, but they did not.

Even if they, or some other billionaire come around to this in five years, those will be five wasted years.

 

http://wikileaks.org...ge-Schmidt.html

 

 

You are ill informed because you are making premature judgment on their research (or potential success) based on a very small amount of information.

 

 

Edited by gt35r, 16 August 2014 - 05:14 PM.

[Kalliste]

They have only recruited people of the old school and their statement is that they are going to look for genetic tricks.

http://www.darkdaily...5#axzz3AaH8UVXq

 

I hope to be proven wrong of course.

[niner]

 

It's naive in the extreme to think that Calico will achieve 100 year life extension without some kind of regeneration.  My hope is that they will move in a regenerative direction, my fear is that they will waste time with unproductive lines of research before they figure that out.  I'm absolutely not opposed to "curve squaring" interventions that might buy us anywhere from a few years to a decade or more.  That would be a great outcome, if Calico can pull it off.

 

We don't even know what their plan is.

 

How do you guys know that  they don't have to plans to include research in any regenrative research? To mean th term regenerative research is very broad. In my opinion, of you can dissolve lipofuscin I would consider that regenrative; if you can dissolve amyloid plaques I consider that regenrative as well. Either way, Calico is inevitably going to have some, or alot, of overlap with SENS.

 

Yes, adding 100 years to life is I would argue imposssible without some regenrative medicine but the truth is we have no clue what their research is going to include.

 

 

True, we don't know.  That's why I couched my answer in terms of hopes and fears, rather than absolutes.  However, based on the history of the people involved, and the past experience of some of us with well-funded science with big names at the helm, I think that our concerns are not crazy.
 

[YOLF]

I have never seen a thread as pessimistic and ill informed as this.

 

Calico is barely set up and you guys have already labeled them as a failure. Look I am all for SENS, if I won the lottery I would give every bit to SENS but to be this upset that CALICO may want to take a different approach to aging is so absurd. Would you prefer that Calico did not exist? 

 

I think SENS is the best framework for longevity and health but I would never be so absurd as to cast judgment on somebody (Calico) who may want to take a different approach on the challenge of aging. God forbid Calico only offer 20 -100 years, which is generous and no pharmaceutical company has ever made that claim. By the way, I suspect that the 20 - 100 year estimate is based on what project they can establish in the near future. Imagine biogerontology, 20 years ago, and now imagine is 20 years from now. 

My post wasn't about attacking CaLiCo. I'm just saying that we can't let them be the only game in town or we could be let down. CaLicCo will no doubt be a major player, but it's absolutely necessary that as a community we stay focused on our mission and not assume that anyone is going to accomplish our mission for us.

[YOLF]

It's naive in the extreme to think that Calico will achieve 100 year life extension without some kind of regeneration.  My hope is that they will move in a regenerative direction, my fear is that they will waste time with unproductive lines of research before they figure that out.  I'm absolutely not opposed to "curve squaring" interventions that might buy us anywhere from a few years to a decade or more.  That would be a great outcome, if Calico can pull it off.

I'm thinking that curve squaring directions would likely result in states of health that are harder to regenerate. If they're managing aging and finding ways to live longer without enabling our bodies to sustain themselves in youthful states, this will lead to more complex regeneration being needed to reverse aging. Am I venturing down a semi accurate path of logic?

 

It would be nice if they spelled it out for us. I admit, I'm very worried. I don't want to get stuck as an old wrinkly. 

 

Let's consider the choice of the tree stump. It tells us what the tree has endured in it's lifetime. Will we always be chained to damage that's happened to us? 

[AgeVivo]

I think that we should greatly encourage CALICO. It is not easy for a large company to stand up for massive life extension as there is a natural tendency to criticize big corporations -- big company try to catch positive emotions and are afraid to catch negative ones; and massive life extension brings both -- it seems to me that the announcement of CALICO in itself does more advocacy on longevity science than anything else so far: in particular it is known at every level of society including in governments, where funding potentials for longevity research are enormous but difficult to activate, and in the pharmaceutical industry that were/are reluctant to consider adressing "biology of health" and long term health. Changing the world requires such annoucements. The more we post about CALICO, the better.

The best would be to have Barack Obama announce a war on aging. At an intermediate level Putin is currently doing such a thing and without denigrating ...horrors, it should be put forward massively

 

 

My post wasn't about attacking CaLiCo. I'm just saying that we can't let them be the only game in town or we could be let down. CaLicCo will no doubt be a major player, but it's absolutely necessary that as a community we stay focused on our mission and not assume that anyone is going to accomplish our mission for us.

 

 

Edited by AgeVivo, 17 August 2014 - 12:31 AM.

[gt35r]

How amazing would it be if Calico came out tomorrow and said we are going to spend one billion dollars to come up with a pharmacological way to break glucosepane?

[YOLF]

Let's hope the next cold war is an anti-aging one where the only people who die are those dying of aging, and those with the fewest casualties wins

[niner]

It's naive in the extreme to think that Calico will achieve 100 year life extension without some kind of regeneration.  My hope is that they will move in a regenerative direction, my fear is that they will waste time with unproductive lines of research before they figure that out.  I'm absolutely not opposed to "curve squaring" interventions that might buy us anywhere from a few years to a decade or more.  That would be a great outcome, if Calico can pull it off.

I'm thinking that curve squaring directions would likely result in states of health that are harder to regenerate. If they're managing aging and finding ways to live longer without enabling our bodies to sustain themselves in youthful states, this will lead to more complex regeneration being needed to reverse aging. Am I venturing down a semi accurate path of logic?
 
It would be nice if they spelled it out for us. I admit, I'm very worried. I don't want to get stuck as an old wrinkly. 
 
Let's consider the choice of the tree stump. It tells us what the tree has endured in it's lifetime. Will we always be chained to damage that's happened to us?

 
I don't think it's the case that curve squaring interventions will make us harder to regenerate.  Not harder than the alternative- dead or frozen...  Will we always be chained to damage that's happened to us?  Not always, as in 'forever', but potentially for a very long time.   I think one of the harder things to fix is going to be tissue that has gotten disordered, hypertrophic, weird and scarred.  This could include some pretty significant parts of your body, if you don't take care of yourself.  This is a problem that I don't see SENS having a solution for, or even thinking about, at the moment.  I suppose that Calico will let people know what they're working on, once they figure out what that is.  I think their business model is going to be a big factor.  If they could use some of Google's billions to conquer aging, and then place it in the public domain without having to address approval by government bodies, that would be amazing.  If they have to turn a profit from an early date, and they have to get FDA approval for a 'disease' indication, well, good luck with that...   I don't think that Google is a charity, and when they talk about high risk / high return ventures, I presume they want to see some money.  OTOH, maybe the high return is just everyone knowing that Google changed the course of the human race, in a good way.  That would make up for a few failures of "Don't be evil".
 

How amazing would it be if Calico came out tomorrow and said we are going to spend one billion dollars to come up with a pharmacological way to break glucosepane?

 
As Steve Jobs would have said, that would be insanely great.   I hope they do that, or something like it.

[gt35r]

I think if SENS or anybody else can demonstrate a therapy for undoing glucosepane it would change the way society looks at the treatment of aging. Getting rid of glucosepane should improve so many markers of aging that it would be hard no to notice. 

 

If I had a substantial wealth by main goal would be to figure out how do undo AGEs/glucosepane. 

 

I am glad to see SENS is putting emphasis on AGEs/glucosepane as well as lipofuscin. I do believe it is possible to treat AGEs with classic (non-biological) pharmacology. As we saw with ALT-711 it is at least possible to attack an AGE through drug therapy. 

[Janusz Czoch]

I have never seen a thread as pessimistic and ill informed as this.

 

Calico is barely set up and you guys have already labeled them as a failure. Look I am all for SENS, if I won the lottery I would give every bit to SENS but to be this upset that CALICO may want to take a different approach to aging is so absurd. Would you prefer that Calico did not exist?

 

 

Pessimistic? The story of SENS funding is the horror of watching a train crash unfolding in slow-motion that's taking us down with it. Ten years of it. To date SENS has largely been funded from his own pocket and now the money has began to run dry. There is a recent piece that is relevant: AdG at Google London on Monday 28 July, 2014. Aubrey de Grey, 'The Science of Ending Aging' | Talks at Google

 

Aubrey talks heavily about funding matters, Larry Ellison etc, and It's not a rosy picture. Highly relevant to the discussion about CALICO. Watch 56'45" onward.
 

So; do we wait see if? - or do we wait?

Edited by Janusz Czoch, 19 August 2014 - 09:55 PM.

[Link]

I don't want to be a pessimist about Calico, but i can only say what i truly believe.

 

As i said i desperately hope to be proved wrong, but i think one can rightfully infer, based on the people that they have hired to head the research, that they will take the currently mainstream approach of tweaking genes or performing studies on surtuins and calorie restriction mimetics in an attempt to mildly slow the aging process.

 

I can't say i share the opinions of others on this thread that all forms of research into aging are created equal. Sirtuins, calorie restriction mimetics, gene therapy aimed at reducing or boosting certain proteins... these have been studied for years to the point of exhaustion in animals and will likely have a very mild effect on aging even if they do work, when and if they ever make it to the market.

 

On the other hand we know that extra and intra cellular junk, as well as cell loss and senescent cells that remain uncleared from the body all contribute to aging in a very real way and yet research on these remain drastically underfunded.

[YOLF]

 

 

I have never seen a thread as pessimistic and ill informed as this.

 

Calico is barely set up and you guys have already labeled them as a failure. Look I am all for SENS, if I won the lottery I would give every bit to SENS but to be this upset that CALICO may want to take a different approach to aging is so absurd. Would you prefer that Calico did not exist?

 

 

Pessimistic? The story of SENS funding is the horror of watching a train crash unfolding in slow-motion that's taking us down with it. Ten years of it. To date SENS has largely been funded from his own pocket and now the money has began to run dry. There is a recent piece that is relevant: AdG at Google London on Monday 28 July, 2014. Aubrey de Grey, 'The Science of Ending Aging' | Talks at Google

 

Aubrey talks heavily about funding matters, Larry Ellison etc, and It's not a rosy picture. Highly relevant to the discussion about CALICO. Watch 56'45" onward.
 

So; do we wait see if? - or do we wait?

 

 

 

Aubrey talks about CaLiCo in this video. There is still much to be done and much to be funded. We don't wait to see, we don't just wait, we organize fundraising activities.

Edited by cryonicsculture, 20 August 2014 - 12:52 AM.

[Janusz Czoch]

[...]

 

Aubrey talks about CaLiCo in this video. There is still much to be done and much to be funded. We don't wait to see, we don't just wait, we organize fundraising activities.

 

Agreed. IMO this is now the absolute proof, if it were needed, that the LC website must be purposefully extended to showcase clearly accessible attractive and effective fundraising tools to the most casual visitors.

That is the important topic for a separate thread.

Edited by Janusz Czoch, 20 August 2014 - 02:03 AM.

[Link]

AbbVie and Calico Announce a Novel Collaboration to Accelerate the Discovery, Development, and Commercialization of New Therapies

Calico to create a leading R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area focused on aging and age-related diseases, including neurodegeneration and cancer

AbbVie and Calico may co-invest up to $1.5 billion, utilizing Calico’s discovery and early development capabilities and AbbVie’s broad research, development, and commercial expertise to advance innovative new therapies

NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 3, 2014 – AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) and Calico announced a novel R&D collaboration intended to help the two companies discover, develop and bring to market new therapies for patients with age-related diseases, including for neurodegeneration and cancer.

Calico is the Google-backed life sciences company led by Arthur D. Levinson, Ph.D. (former chairman and CEO of Genentech) and Hal V. Barron, M.D. (former Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Genentech). The agreement paves the way for Calico to establish a world-class research and development facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Under the agreement, the companies will combine their complementary strengths to accelerate the availability of new therapies for age-related diseases:

• Calico will use its scientific expertise to establish a world-class research and development facility, with a focus on drug discovery and early drug development; and
• AbbVie will provide scientific and clinical development support and its commercial expertise to bring new discoveries to market.

“This collaboration demonstrates our commitment to exploring new areas of medicine and innovative approaches to drug discovery and development that augments our already robust pipeline,” said Richard A. Gonzalez, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, AbbVie. “We are pleased to be working with such outstanding scientists as Art Levinson, Hal Barron and their team. The potential to help improve patients’ lives with new therapies is enormous.”

“Our relationship with AbbVie is a pivotal event for Calico, whose mission is to develop life-enhancing therapies for people with age-related diseases. It will greatly accelerate our efforts to understand the science of aging, advance our clinical work, and help bring important therapies to patients everywhere,” said Art Levinson, CEO and founder of Calico.

Details of the Research Collaboration

 

• AbbVie and Calico will each initially provide up to $250 million to fund the collaboration with the potential for both sides to contribute an additional $500 million
• Calico will be responsible for research and early development during the first five years and continue to advance collaboration projects through Phase 2a for a ten-year period
• AbbVie will support Calico in its early R&D efforts and, following completion of Phase 2a studies, activities
• Both parties will share costs and profits equally

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the many outstanding scientists at AbbVie to ensure that the important science at Calico is advanced quickly to benefit patients,” said Hal Barron, M.D., President of Research and Development at Calico.

"We are extremely proud to have our research teams partnering with Calico as we aim to address treatments for diseases of aging,” said Michael Severino, M.D., Executive Vice President, Research and Development, and Chief Scientific Officer, AbbVie. "Our broad R&D experience and capabilities will complement Calico's biotechnology expertise and innovative scientific approaches. Together, we are confident that we will bring new therapeutic solutions to patients."

Calico expects to begin filling critical positions immediately, and plans to establish a substantial team of scientists and research staff in the San Francisco Bay Area.

About AbbVie

AbbVie is a global, research-based biopharmaceutical company formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories. The company's mission is to use its expertise, dedicated people and unique approach to innovation to develop and market advanced therapies that address some of the world's most complex and serious diseases. AbbVie employs approximately 25,000 people worldwide and markets medicines in more than 170 countries. For further information on the company and its people, portfolio and commitments, please visit www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on Twitter or view careers on our Facebook or LinkedIn page.

About Calico

Calico (California Life Sciences LLC) is a Google-founded research and development company whose mission is to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan. We will use that knowledge to devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives. Visit www.calicolabs.com.

 

[niner]

Sounds like Calico is turning into another pharma, working on the diseases of aging. They did mention the word "aging" as one of the things they are working on- I guess it's a question of how much focus each branch gets.
 

Calico, whose mission is to develop life-enhancing therapies for people with age-related diseases

 

Hmm...

[Link]

Yeah i was quite excited to see that at least something is happening, money is being spent and the ball is rolling.

 

I was disappointed however, to read that their focus seems to be mainly cancer and alzhiemers, which already have substantial funding relative to other, less well known causes of degenerative aging. Especially given that when Calico was first announced i thought i remembered Larry Page saying something about how even if we cured cancer today, it would only add about 3 years to life expectancy, so i thought they were going to focus on other areas.

 

 

[tunt01]

 

I was disappointed however, to read that their focus seems to be mainly cancer and alzhiemers, which already have substantial funding relative to other, less well known causes of degenerative aging. 

 

 

 

 

To me it makes sense.  As we've discussed in threads related to Telomerase, lengthening telomeres or attempting to make cells immortal risks inducing cancer.  Targeting cancer and ALZ is probably too broad a statement to deduce exactly their approach/focus, but I think it could make a lot of sense.

[forever freedom]

About effin' time Calico shows what it's up to. I agree that it makes sense to fight cancer and Alzheimer's, we haven't cured these diseases yet after all. How are we to beat aging if we can't even understand/cure cancer and Alzheimer's?

[Link]

I do think curing cancer and Alzheimer's are important but these diseases already receive billions in funding research every year. Meanwhile other important areas of aging research go drastically underfunded.

It's likely that we will have effectively cured cancer in 20 or so years even without any effort from Calico, but how much difference could Calico make if they were looking at blood vessel stiffening, mitochondrial damage, amyloid etc.

[niner]

About effin' time Calico shows what it's up to. I agree that it makes sense to fight cancer and Alzheimer's, we haven't cured these diseases yet after all. How are we to beat aging if we can't even understand/cure cancer and Alzheimer's?

 

The problem is that everyone is already working on cancer and Alzheimers, and has been for decades.  If this is Calico's main focus, then they are just another pharmaceutical company.   Knowing how to treat the "diseases of aging" is an entirely different problem than actually curing aging, and if the past is any guide, isn't going to help much at all.

 

My only hope is that this "conventional pharma-ization" of Calico is something of a cover that provides "illness" indications for what are really anti-aging treatments. 

[forever freedom]

Probably due to my lack of scientific knowledge, i just can't fathom how aging could possibly be easier to handle/prevent/cure than cancer or Alzheimer's. Aging seems a few orders of magnitude more complex, or am i wrong? If i am right, then the fact that we can't even cure cancer after throwing at it billions every year shows how primitive our medical/scientific knowledge still is. That being the case IMO it makes sense to start at diseases and once we tackled them, to scale up from there. Isn't it a bit of hubris to shoot straight at aging when we haven't achieved easier milestones? Isn't it, to put it very bluntly, to try to build a Ferrari in the Middle Ages? Please someone elucidate me here.

[niner]

Probably due to my lack of scientific knowledge, i just can't fathom how aging could possibly be easier to handle/prevent/cure than cancer or Alzheimer's. Aging seems a few orders of magnitude more complex, or am i wrong? If i am right, then the fact that we can't even cure cancer after throwing at it billions every year shows how primitive our medical/scientific knowledge still is. That being the case IMO it makes sense to start at diseases and once we tackled them, to scale up from there. Isn't it a bit of hubris to shoot straight at aging when we haven't achieved easier milestones? Isn't it, to put it very bluntly, to try to build a Ferrari in the Middle Ages? Please someone elucidate me here.

 

I'm not so sure that cancer and Alzheimers are simpler than aging.  Both of these diseases involve biology that is malfunctioning in countless ways.  Particularly in the case of cancer, because of the genetic instability of cancer cells, they are mutating constantly.  Curing them is like reassembling a building after a bomb has gone off in the basement and the whole thing has collapsed.  The bomb in this analogy represents aging, and we need to learn how to defuse it.  The effort that has gone into cancer dwarfs the effort that has gone into attempts to cure aging, or to understand it with an eye toward doing something about it.  Until fairly recently, almost nobody was working on it.  That is changing now, but the total amount of money going toward curing aging is a drop in the ocean compared to what's been (and being) spent on the major "diseases of aging".

[Kalliste]

It's easier to construct a anti-ballistic system that shoots down incoming nuclear warheads than it is to rebuild a city hit by a nuclear warhead.

 

Alzheimer and cancer are late stage manifestations of accumulated and inherited damage. Stop it early would be better. Stop it later and you can at least sell a ton of expensive medicine continuously.