Comment by reasonattlm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reasonattlm | Hacker News Reader

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I can't say as I like his take on the longevity industry. It is the take that will produce few meaningful advances, the "looking under the lamp because that's where the light is" way of approaching life. Just more marginally better drugs that do a little bit more than those of 10 years ago.

Sadly investors probably care very little from a financial position as to whether a drug works or not, as their exit usually happens somewhere between trials at Phase 1 and Phase 2. Earlier in the longevity market because it is hot.

I've put together Request for Startup lists for the longevity industry for the past few years, based on fairly detailed insight into the state of the science.

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2019/02/request-for-star...

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2017/12/request-for-star...

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/12/request-for-star...

Because things move slowly in biotech, just about everything in these documents except for more senolytics is still valid.

Love your blog! Recently got interested in longevity research, as I was surprised how much closer to reality it is than I imagined, and also as a possible future industry to work in, and your blog has been one of the best resources to both get up to speed on the topic and also keep up to date!

As you are as familiar as few people are with the topic, I'd like to ask you for some advice, if possible: What do you think is the best way for someone like me (currently biochem undergrad, with ~7 years broad software engineering experience), to have an impact in the field?

Any bio* field can lead to working on treating aging; at undergraduate level you have tremendous flexibility as to which direction you take. For now build connections. Go to the conferences where industry meets science and meet people (Undoing Aging, Ending Age-Related Diseases, Longevity Therapeutics, Longevity Leaders, etc). Figure out who the people are you'd like to work with. Either for the corporate path of interning with companies working on aging, leading to a scientific position with one such company, or for the academic path of postgraduate work with a research who is doing something in aging that you find interesting.

Thanks for the response!

Dude, you are on it! Congratulations.

(FWIW, I think that space colonization will only be practical if we develop either FTL or longevity (live to 1000+) and the latter seems way more doable than the former, eh?)

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