data readouts because one of the things i was working looking at dna sequencing data on - - data because we went from the human genome project costing billions of dollars if you want to sequence the human genome it's one year later $100 million taken weeks and weeks of work were now we can see for less than $1000 it is routine so we have vast quantities of biological data so which sells at which time and then to determine and those studies and just generate vast volumes of data.

and so the great news is that that computing power has been it has accelerated rapidly. that is the crucial thing because we have to extract understanding from them so if you have those skills to help out the's data together a concrete example a fascinating breakthrough about a decade ago with the idea the epigenetic clock this is what happens look at the marks and what determines which genes are turned on or turned off in ourselves. so it must be a relationship between this and aging.

so they are speculative so a lot of biological data is put out online so with that is the thing that sticks to your dna basically so with loads of this data completely unrelated experiments with developmental abnormalities and dozens of different tissues the only constraint wires that has to have a marker and he found off of those millions is scattered across the genome he could take 250 to determine the age of the person and it is incredible so incredible in fact it couldn't be published because nobody including him did not believe it so this is

a fascinating area of aging if you have accelerating age it's even higher. not suggesting you have aged more rapidly than someone that's younger but they find these all the time. so because of the culture of open data see you have to show the sheer power to find these signals if there are any or not. >> . >> talk about bio hacking that that is the expected other future activities. >> i am fascinated by this there is a continuum if you google this you will find there are people online how

they prescribe that or order that. and those that take more wacky drugs all the way up to the biotech ceo who actually went to a clinic abroad to have that to longer raise gene therapy so there's a whole spectrum of people from these friday of different approaches to have completely experimental and everything in between. but that is becoming so much more open source the bio hackers have a whole lot more power been fascinated and then to make use of that data as

well. i talk about this in the final chapter on some level it is pretty brave. i'm not ready for the experimental gene therapy that maybe someone who is a little bit less risk-averse and then to give the information first and with those risks are the potential benefits is to want people chasing a pipe dream and then second what we want we don't want bio hackers growing up that differs slightly from one another and then with a different technique someone and so forth. so if they could do so to standardize it for what they

think they have got in and try to do some useful trials that would be a fascinating time not just bio hacking but for all of us. because if we have to do more studies with the aging process so what is the evidence good enough to take the plunge? the ideal scenario you could go to the year 2500 taking medications their whole lifetime that is the perfect experiment but we do have time to wait for seven years for the perfect experiment so we have to take these drugs and treatments with good or bad evidence. and have a much more wider

discussion with bio hackers and all of society's really that is a fascinating area. >> the last question is will we see these treatments in our lifetime? >> i am a scientist so it's hard to tie me down obviously it will be developed in a certain amount of time but the way i did that it is exciting if i genuinely think a lot of these treatments will be available in time for most people alive today. so first these treatments are already in human trials that could be five or ten years we

all know the answer in five years so gene therapy and stem cell therapy they sound more futuristic but we are already doing some gene therapies they are being used in hospitals such a get used to doing these so we are at the point for the general public so even if it's 15 years away it is decades not centuries. so talking about all of this data in biology this means we do a systems biology of aging please sell computer models for human beings. we need to intervene in clever

ways and to be more subtle to stabilize that and stop us from growing old. now to be crazy sci-fi to even speculate in this way but if you think about it that could easily happen inside the next 50 years a total revolution of computing power and so on and so on. so that is a poor bats if you are middle-age you could expect to get the first generation may be stem cell treatment that you could expect even if nothing else happens and then among those

scientist to develop more treatments those most of the people alive on the planet today but they could be extended further by these aging therapies so that's the first of these antiaging drugs in the next two years we could potentially see a much bigger increase if that rate can continue fast enough as more technology is developed >> great. thank you. thank you so much. thanks to all of>> younk for asg the thoughtful questions. i just want to thank you again for this fantastic presentation. i feel like there was a lot.

and thank you to everyone out there for spending the evening with us. on behalf of harvard book store, have a good weekend. keep reading and stay well. thank you so much. >> thank you. goodbye. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories, and on sundays booktv bring to the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including buckeye broadban broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪