> Originally Calico was sold as a "fighting old age" company. That's vastly different than "fighting diseases associated with old age".
The difference isn't really clear to me. Could you elaborate?
The difference isn't really clear to me. Could you elaborate?
Perhaps the most significant problem associated with aging is centered around our body's replication system. The way that cells duplicate and grow is not perfect. Hosts of environmental, biological, and "pure luck" factors all combine against us in a slow, but inevitable warping of our genetics.
In addition to genetic decay, our biological parts get "worn out" over time. Valves close with less force and vessels become inelastic. Our stretchy bits - tendons, ligaments - become scarred with micro-tears over time causing decreased flexibility. Our squishier bits - our inner organs and muscle - tend to become less efficient over time and decay sets in (a rule of thumb is past the age of 30, the average human loses 1% of muscle mass per year). Our squishy-stretchy bits - fascia - tend to lose the fight to gravity as the cells become less and less "sticky" and the skin on our faces droop.
As one ages, the mistakes in replication, the decay of our organic bodies begin to add up. As they pile on year after year, the likelihood of getting "sick" increases. Alzheimer's - thought to be brought about by tissue decay and subsequent scarring in the brain. Infarctions (a loss of blood supply, thus a loss of nutrients and oxygen) to a certain part of the body (heart attacks are a common result of cardiac-related infarctions) - can be caused by a stiffening of the walls of blood vessels which lets plaque build up and eventually, when some plaque is dislodged, that plaque might get trapped in a smaller vessel and cause a lethal blockage. Edema (excess fluid building up in tissue) - generally as a result of the weakening of the heart (the heart is a muscle which gets weaker over time) and the decay of the vessels and the muscles surrounding the vessels. And so on and so forth.
Fighting old age tends to be thought of as fighting the underlying physical and genetic decay the geriatric (or just aging in general) undergo. Reversing old age, in a similar manner, tends to focus around the prevention or the reversal of that decay. Fighting diseases associated with old age thus is far more limited in scope. While the end result of "fighting old age" might eliminate certain diseases, "fighting diseases associated with old age" will never prevent people from getting old.
A much more modern approach is to figure out what kills people (heart disease, atherosclerosis, muscular & neural degeneration, loss of immune system) and fix that. Build a new immune system, figure out how to 'plumb' one's blood vessels, or '3d-print' new ones. Stem-cell & regenerative medicine can make new, and sometimes even improved, organs.
The technologies of the second kind were only fanciful pipe-dreams 30 years ago when the old-school pharma companies came about. And a few still are today. But many are not. We can actually do meaningful research into designing these complex tissues today that would entirely obviate the old way pharma does business.
As someone who does tissue engineering & synthetic biology it's a bit telling to see big money come in from a different field and latch onto old-school 'names' rather than new-school 'ideas'. Calico really could be something truly spectacular - but it has to be careful who it sets at its helm...
"fighting old age" - attempting to stop the aging process itself (i.e. longevity)
"fighting old age diseases" - looking to cure diseases associated with old age (i.e. treating a specific condition)
In the second example you could be treating a disease, but not having any impact on the aging process itself.
The ability to stop aging process might still end up somewhat limited by cancer, so both goals seem to be tightly connected.
I read once that if we didn't get old, death due to accidents would make the mean lifetime 800 years. I wonder what cancer does to that figure.