The Fight to End Aging Gains Legitimacy & Funding
wired.com
wired.com
EDIT: Also, I think it is unfair to label people like de Grey or Kurzweil as simply "afraid to die." They just see it as a necessity for reaching the boundaries of human exploratory possibilities. Although it is true that new minds produce new insights, it is undoubtedly also true that if a single person could live for two centuries instead of one in a healthy state of mind, he could probably do more research in his field than two separate people in those centuries, since he would have both the advantage of more overall knowledge and passing on that greater collective to his colleagues and students (who in turn will likely benefit more than from a 50-year-old professor that has had less experience in the field).
I suppose you could argue that if you had 1000 years ahead of you the drive to do great things may be weakened. Why start today when the tools available in the next century would make everything so much quicker.
Similarly, I know that, at least in the biological sciences, there is a frequent joke that for an area where a certain theory has held true for a number of years but where new technologies are revealing errors the retirement/death of the incumbent professors is often required before better theories get the consideration they deserve. Knowledge comes at a price and sometimes a fresh start is needed.
These arguments are incredibly weak though.