About
Aubrey de Grey is an English author and biomedical gerontologist. He is the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation and VP of New Technology Discovery at AgeX Therapeutics.
In 2018 Aubrey famously stated that the first human to live up to 1000 years has probably been born.
Aubrey research focuses on whether regenerative medicine can prevent the biological aging process. He works on the development of what he calls “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence” (SENS), a collection of proposed techniques to rejuvenate the human body and stop aging.
Aubrey advocates treating death as a bug or a disease in itself. He is known for his view that medical technology may enable human beings alive today not to die from age-related causes.
As of 2005, his work centered on a detailed plan called Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), which is aimed at preventing age-related physical and cognitive decline. In March 2009, he co-founded the SENS Research Foundation (named SENS Foundation until early 2013), a non-profit organisation based in California, United States, where he currently serves as Chief Science Officer. The Foundation “works to develop, promote and ensure widespread access to regenerative medicine solutions to the disabilities and diseases of aging”.
In 2007, de Grey wrote the book Ending Aging with the assistance of Michael Rae.
Since 2008, soon after he began speaking publicly about his gerontological theories, de Grey has been scientific advisor for the Campaign for Aging Research (C.A.R.)
In July 2017 de Grey was appointed Vice President of New Technology Discovery at AgeX Therapeutics, a startup in the Longevity space helmed by Michael D. West.
De Grey is also a cryonicist, having signed up with Alcor.
Aubrey coined the term “pro-aging trance” which describes a fallacious psychological strategy which people use to cope with aging, and which is rooted in the belief that aging is not only immutable and unavoidable, but desirable in some sense, as part of the natural or divine order that should not be perturbed.
Despite a significant contribution to the field of anti-aging, which is one of the major pillars of Transhumanism, Aubrey states:
I don’t actually like to be called a transhumanist, because I think that that term does damage to pioneering technological fields like mine by making them sound as though we want to turn humanity into a new species.