Joe Rogan Experience #1432 - Aubrey de Grey

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Three, two, one. Boom.…

   1. AGAubrey de Grey0:01

      Three, two, one. Boom. Here we go.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      What's up, man?

   3. AGAubrey de Grey0:05

      How are you? What's up?

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      Hey, did you trim your beard since I've seen you last?

   5. AGAubrey de Grey0:07

      No, I'm afraid not.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:07

      I feel like you have.

   7. AGAubrey de Grey0:08

      No. It may be a fraction shorter, but that's only because it's been falling out more.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      It falls out?

   9. AGAubrey de Grey0:13

      Oh, yeah. I mean-

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:13

       Wow.

   11. AGAubrey de Grey0:13

       ... I stroke it all the time, you know? It's compulsive.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:15

       Oh. And so then you get these weird hairs that you have to-

   13. AGAubrey de Grey0:19

       (laughs) Well, actually, I don't notice it enough. I mean, it falls out slowly, you know, but-

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       Yeah.

   15. AGAubrey de Grey0:22

       ... I guess, you know, I guess there's a certain amount of attrition.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       So the beard's the same length?

   17. AGAubrey de Grey0:26

       Pretty much.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Have you gotten any younger since I've seen you last?

   19. AGAubrey de Grey0:29

       Yeah, hard to say.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       Hard to say. But that is your, that is your business?

   21. AGAubrey de Grey0:32

       That's my business, yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       How many years has it been since I saw you? Four?

   23. AGAubrey de Grey0:35

       Uh, f- nearly five, I think.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       Five? Five years.

   25. AGAubrey de Grey0:37

       It was A- April of 2015.

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       Mm. And you have not, you have not gotten younger?

   27. AGAubrey de Grey0:43

       I have not gotten younger. I-

   28. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       Have you maintained?

   29. AGAubrey de Grey0:45

       I think I've pretty much maintained, yes.

   30. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Yeah?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Like what kind of…

   1. AGAubrey de Grey15:00

      some of it's already in clinical trials.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Like what kind of stuff?

   3. AGAubrey de Grey15:02

      So for example, the stem cell therapies now being used-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:06

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AGAubrey de Grey15:07

      ... for aspects of aging with a really clear understanding of how they're going to work. Parkinson's disease is a great example of this-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      Yeah.

   7. AGAubrey de Grey15:13

      ... where stem cell therapy is the right way to go and it's in clinical trials. Something that's been in the news a lot over the past couple of years is senolytics, which are drugs that selectively kill what are called senescent cells. So these are cells that hang out in the body in a bad state, where they're doing more harm than good. They're, not only are they not doing what they're supposed to, they're also secreting nasty stuff that damages their neighborhood. And so drugs have been developed that are seemingly pretty good at getting rid of those, and they're in clinical trials as well. Most ... And so we don't wo- ... We used to work on that area. We basically do no work on that area anymore, hardly any. Um, and we may end up doing none at all a couple of years from now just because-

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:52

      Why is that?

   9. AGAubrey de Grey15:52

      Because other people are doing it-

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:53

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AGAubrey de Grey15:53

       ... and so our money is better spent doing the stuff that's still at an earlier stage. And beyond that, um, you know, we are able even for things that are a couple of years behind that, so wo- won't be in clinical trials for another year or two, um, we've been able even then to get investors interested so that we can actually spin the projects out as start-up companies and focus on the things that remain. And it's not just us, of course. There's lots and lots of ... I mean, literally more than, way over 100 other companies now that I work with 'cause they're not spin-outs from my foundation but they are, um, you know, doing closely aligned work. And so I'm, I'm literally spending probably a day a week on average, um, just making introductions between, you know, en- entrepreneur founders, you know, scientific founders of, with, with great science and investors who wanna get involved.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:42

       The, uh, stem cell therapy is fascinating to me because I've had some personal experience with it. Um, I've had some injuries that I cured with, uh, well, doctors cured with stem cells in a remarkable way. Where the point where I, I was told that I need shoulder surgery-

   13. AGAubrey de Grey16:57

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:57

       ... and, uh, I had a, a large rotator cuff tear-

   15. AGAubrey de Grey17:00

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:00

       ... and it's gone.

   17. AGAubrey de Grey17:01

       I know, it's incredible.

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:02

       It's amazing.

   19. AGAubrey de Grey17:03

       But that's not really what I'm talking about. That's gone really well and-

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:05

       You're talking about ne- neurodegenerative diseases and-

   21. AGAubrey de Grey17:08

       So, well, the big difference, it's not necessarily brain versus anything else. What I'm saying is that what you got was using stem cells to treat an acute injury-

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:18

       Mm-hmm.

   23. AGAubrey de Grey17:18

       ... right? A tear. And that's what stem cell therapies have been developed the most for so far, um, a- and have shown the most promise for. But now we're going to the point where we're in a position to use stem cells to address certain aspects of aging. In other words, certain aspects of slow, steady, progressive decline that happens throughout life.

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:40

       Through intravenous use?

   25. AGAubrey de Grey17:42

       Th- well, not necessarily intravenous. So let me talk about the Parkinson's disease case in a bit more detail. So what Parkinson's disease is driven by is the loss of a particular type of neuron. So of course, in the brain there's lots of different types of neuron. There's one type called a dopaminergic neuron and they exist just in one specific, very small part of the brain called the substantia nigra. So it turns out those neurons, they ... Well, because they do a lot of work basically, um, they die at a much more rapid rate than other types of neuron. So (clears throat) we end up, all of us, with maybe-... a quarter of those neurons that we had when we were young adults having gone by old age. That's okay. That, that amount of margin of error is tolerable in the system. It just doesn't, doesn't have a con- a consequence. But of course, as with everything in aging, some people have the problem accumulate faster than others, and so some people by old age will have lost maybe three-quarters of their dopaminergic neurons, and that is what gives you Parkinson's disease. So what is stem cell therapy? If you think about it, what it is basically you put cells into the body that have been programmed, have been got in ... Have been, um, developed into the right state in the lab so that they know what to do when you inject them. They know, like, to divide and to then transform themselves to differentiate into the right kind of other cell. So what has been developed is dopaminergic precursor cells, stem cells that know how to become dopaminergic neurons. And those are injected into this one place, the substantia nigra, and they do what ... They do that thing.

   26. JRJoe Rogan19:16

       So they're injected right into the brain?

   27. AGAubrey de Grey19:19

       That's right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:19

       Wow.

   29. AGAubrey de Grey19:20

       So actually this was first tried more than 25 years ago. There was a clinical trial in Sweden because people knew what Park- what, what was ... That this was driving Parkinson's disease, so they knew this ought to work. But of course back then we knew almost nothing about how to manipulate stem cells in the laboratory. So what they did was, these people, they took cells from the right part of the brain of aborted fetuses. Right? And they just injected them. Now this was enormously speculative because, you know, first of all, the brain of an aborted fetus is very pu- very ... Has, has hardly developed at all, right? And so just taking the right cells from kind of the right place was hit-and-miss. And sure enough almost all the time there was no effect because, you know, they just didn't get the right kind of stem cell, but occasionally it worked. Occasionally patients got lucky and got some of the right kind of stem cell.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:14

       How often?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Have you personally experienced…

   1. AGAubrey de Grey30:00

      then we need to look at the, at what fixes are available for each individual type. So what stem cells are there to fix is cell loss, where cells are dying and they're not being automatically replaced in the body by cell division.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:14

      Have you personally experienced any stem cell therapy?

   3. AGAubrey de Grey30:16

      No, I haven't done any therapies of, for any, of any kind yet, but of course, you know, I'm paying attention.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:23

      Yeah.

   5. AGAubrey de Grey30:23

      Uh, uh, uh, I'll see. You know, of course.... the way, the nature of aging is that because it's progressive and because it's only, it only causes functional decline after a certain point, there's a trade-off that one always have to keep in mind in terms of timing of the therapy between how badly one needs it and how rapidly the quality of the therapy is improving. So, you know, if I take a stem cell therapy now, then there's a chance that it'll be bad for me, for whatever reason, okay? Whereas 10 years down the road, I will still, uh, uh, you know, I won't have needed it for those 10 years. 10 years down the road, I may start to need it a bit more, but there, th- they will, it will have benefited from 10 years more of research and refinement.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:03

      Hmm.

   7. AGAubrey de Grey31:03

      So, next one.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:04

      So you're a cautious patient.

   9. AGAubrey de Grey31:06

      Oh, sure. I mean, I don't think anybody wants to be the first patient.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:09

       I'm in. I'll t- I'll be the first guy.

   11. AGAubrey de Grey31:10

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       I'm already doing a bunch of stem cell therapies.

   13. AGAubrey de Grey31:13

       Well-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       Do you do intravenous stem cell therapies too?

   15. AGAubrey de Grey31:16

       Well, sure, but I mean the point is, you, you weren't the first to do any of these things.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:19

       Oh, for sure.

   17. AGAubrey de Grey31:19

       Right. (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:20

       Yeah.

   19. AGAubrey de Grey31:20

       Um, so yes, in, in terms of other things, so senolytics do not compete with stem cells because senolytics are there to do a different thing, to affect a different type of damage, namely the accumulation of these bad cells.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:32

       Right.

   21. AGAubrey de Grey31:32

       And then you've gotta have, you know, cancer therapies. You've gotta have therapies that remove molecular waste products from inside cells. A couple of our startup companies have, have d- are doing that. You've gotta, um, uh, remove waste products from outside the cells, for example. So people have used the immune system to do that. Um, you've gotta repair DNA in, uh, in the mitochondria, these special parts of the cell that do the chemistry of breathing. Um, you know, there's a bunch of different things we have to do. And s- another piece of good news, I told you earlier on that there's been no real change over the past 20 years in our understanding of what the problem is. It's better than that. There's also been no real need to change our preferred approaches to each of, to, to each of the damage repair technologies. We haven't had, we haven't, you know, found bad news that says, "Oh dear, this potential approach to fixing this particular type of damage isn't gonna work for this new reason that we didn't know before, therefore we have to start again and think of a new one." That hasn't happened either.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:28

       That's excellent. So it's just essentially refining the procedures or the, the, uh-

   23. AGAubrey de Grey32:32

       Yeah, grinding away and actually implementing them. That's right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:35

       Yeah. Wh- is this, uh, is this something that you still truly enjoy doing?

   25. AGAubrey de Grey32:40

       (laughs) I wouldn't say I ever enjoyed doing it. You know?

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:43

       No? Really?

   27. AGAubrey de Grey32:43

       I, I, I mean, I enjoy life. I enjoy just, you know, staring at the sky from my hot tub.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:48

       (laughs)

   29. AGAubrey de Grey32:48

       Um, it's just that I wanna carry on doing it rather than, you know, dying instead.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:53

       So almost, I mean-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughs) . …

   1. AGAubrey de Grey45:00

      right? High IQ, highly respect for each other's intellect and for o- for, for one, for their own intellect and rationality.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      (laughs) .

   3. AGAubrey de Grey45:05

      And, um, and they're rolling in the aisles, and the guy's just unaffected.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:11

      (laughs) .

   5. AGAubrey de Grey45:12

      So, um, when I started to have these discussions with people about aging and started to find out that people make these unbelievable arguments in favor of it, um, you know, I, I coined this phrase, I call it the pro-aging trance. And it was based on that experience from my youth.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:31

      Yeah, I've always said to people, "If there was a pill that you can take that would stop all aging, all deterioration, and all diseases, you'd be a fool not to take it. You'd be a fool." Do, do you want to suffer? The idea that this romantic... If, if it was a rare thing that people aged, a very rare thing, we would look at it with great sadness, that someone was afflicted with this aging.

   7. AGAubrey de Grey45:56

      Oh, yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:57

      We saw someone hunched over with severe arthritis and osteoporosis and deterioration of the joints and decaying of the cognitive function and they don't know where they are, who they are, we'd be so sad.

   9. AGAubrey de Grey46:09

      That's right.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:10

       But instead we think of it as like, "Well, he's 90, he had a good life."

   11. AGAubrey de Grey46:13

       That's exactly right. It's not just the fact that everyone gets it. It's the fact that everyone gets it at more or less the same age, chronological age. Um, you know, so it's considered to be this leveler. And just, yes, absolutely, people do a little bit better, you know, 20% better than average, and there are people that, who are really, you know, happy.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:31

       Is there any concern or any thought whatsoever to the idea of exacerbating overpopulation?

   13. AGAubrey de Grey46:39

       Of course this is a legitimate question. The thing that's frustrating to me is that I've been answering it for 20 years.

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:46

       What is the answer?

   15. AGAubrey de Grey46:46

       And people still don't listen.

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:48

       Kill dummies?

   17. AGAubrey de Grey46:49

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:50

       That's a good move, right?

   19. AGAubrey de Grey46:52

       Well, of course, a large part of the reason why, uh, uh, it's difficult to get the real answers across is because so much fiction has, science fiction has been written and of course movies, um, giving wrong answers, and um, you know, making a dramatic element out of it, you know?

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       Yes.

   21. AGAubrey de Grey47:07

       Whether it's Blade Runner or In Time or, you know, any of these movies.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       Yeah, they all get it wrong, right?

   23. AGAubrey de Grey47:13

       They all make it as if it's act- they, they kind of reinforce the pro-aging trance, right? They make it as if life would be even worse if we had no aging. Okay, so what's the real answer? The real answer is very straightforward. It's simply that other technologies that are coming along already and will be established, well-established and ubiquitous before we get this to happen, are going to solve the problem, because they will increase the carrying capacity of the planet. Remember that the reason why we have too many people today and we've got environmental consequences is not because of lack of space. It's because of the amount of pollution that the average person generates. Specifically of course, you know, biggest thing being, uh, pumping carbon into the atmosphere. But um, of course, you know, whether it's plastics or whatever. And we're fixing that. You know, th- we've got solar energy and wind energy now that are completely exploding, and they're going to completely replace fossil fuels. And we got there without people even having to wake up and realize that climate change is actually quite an urgent problem.... we got there simply because the technology got to be good enough that the production of a kilowatt hour of, uh, of energy is actually cheaper with these renewable energy mec- mechanisms than it is from fossil fuel. And of course, it's not just that, it's also agriculture. So artificial meat, you know, within not very long, it's gonna be both tastier and far cheaper than r- regular meat. And the amount of, um, space we're gonna save, not l- let alone the amount of methane that we're not gonna be generating is going to, you know-

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:45

       I haven't heard anything saying it's gonna be tastier. Have you?

   25. AGAubrey de Grey48:48

       Of course it's gonna be tastier.

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:49

       How so?

   27. AGAubrey de Grey48:50

       Well, I mean, how would it be popular if it were not tastier? Right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:53

       Tastier?

   29. AGAubrey de Grey48:54

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:54

       I don't think it necessarily would have to be tastier.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Hmm. …

   1. AGAubrey de Grey1:00:01

      So my sense is that once that happens, the following day, it's gonna become impossible to get elected unless you have a manifesto commitment to, you know, have a war on aging, you know, pr- throw proper money at this. I mean, I really mean a proper war on aging, not just like the war on cancer was. Lots of money, not just to do the research but also to frontload all of the investment in infrastructure, and, you know, training of medical personnel and so on, okay? And everyone's gonna know it.... like the world, the public is going to make that switch I just mentioned of expectation, like at once. So it's gonna be ridiculously sudden once it happens. And the first step is going to be that shift in what my colleagues in the biogerontology community feel able to say on camera and on stage. Now, therefore, the question is what amount of progress is gonna be required for that to occur? Now here's the thing, there aren't very many of us. It's a small field. The number of people at the top of the field who actually talk to the media quite a bit is, you know, a dozen maximum. There's me, there's David that you've had on the show, there's, you know, very few others. And we all know each other. We're all good mates, right? So we know exactly where our heads are, you know, what the drivers are. The number one reason why my colleagues don't already say what I say is funding. The fact that unlike me, those people are reliant for most of the money that drives their research on peer-reviewed government money, government grants. And they just won't get them if it's possible to accuse those, accuse them of saying irresponsible things to the media, things that get people's hopes up unduly.Remember there's hardly en- There's n- there's nowhere near enough money. There's less than 10% of the necessary money to fund research at the moment. So the committees that decide who gets money and who doesn't are always desperately scouting around for reasons to say no-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:02:14

      Hmm.

   3. AGAubrey de Grey1:02:14

      ... that can be justified. And saying, "Oh, this guy says irresponsible things to the media," is a totally safe way to say no. Right? So anyway, so this is, this is the problem. This is why my colleagues have to be really pretty curmudgeonly. Even David. David is probably the person out of my colleagues who pushes the envelope as much as possible out of people who have regular faculty positions. But, you know, he's just written a book, which I see you have on your shelf-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:02:41

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AGAubrey de Grey1:02:41

      ... called, you know, uh, Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To. It, he could not have written that book with that title five years ago-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:02:49

      Hmm.

   7. AGAubrey de Grey1:02:50

      ... and kept his job.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:02:51

      Wow.

   9. AGAubrey de Grey1:02:52

      Um, so, you know, the question is how much has to change? And actually, it's not very much. You know, there's a balance here. There's a, there's a, there's a tension here between, on the one hand not saying things that can be characterized as irresponsible, but on the other hand not saying things that can be charact- uh, characterized as simply untrue. (laughs) Like, right? So the more progress is made in the laboratory, not even in the clinic, just with mice, right? In terms of actually, you know, rejuvenating them, making them live longer with treatments that were given to those mice when they were already in middle age. The more progress is made, um, you know, the more impossible it's gonna be to carry on being pessimistic and refusing to, uh, to, to make timeframe predictions or anything like that.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:03:36

       So there's a, almost a forced pessimism-

   11. AGAubrey de Grey1:03:39

       Correct.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:03:39

       ... that's created by the establishment?

   13. AGAubrey de Grey1:03:40

       Correct.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:03:40

       Well, I think what you're saying makes a ton of sense in that once it does get to the point where this is undeniable, this is p- peer-reviewed, proven, established science and also implementable-

   15. AGAubrey de Grey1:03:54

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:03:54

       ... this is something that can be at scale-

   17. AGAubrey de Grey1:03:58

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:03:59

       ... distributed worldwide, yeah, things are gonna get real weird.

   19. AGAubrey de Grey1:04:01

       So people are already, people are obviously still gonna be saying, "It can't be done in humans." You know?

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:04:07

       Right.

   21. AGAubrey de Grey1:04:07

       "It can't really be done," you know, until the cows come home-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:04:11

       Yeah.

   23. AGAubrey de Grey1:04:11

       ... you know, just in the same way as h- has had happened for any other pioneering technology throughout history. But what matters is what the center of gravity of expertly s- ex- stated expert opinion is.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:25

       It is a really, really polarizing subject. I mean, it, it is funny how w- what you're saying rings so true that academics and intellectuals have to be cautious about talking about even what is potentially possible, even though in private they probably are more than aware that there's just a few steps to go before this stuff gets implemented and we see really catastrophic, I mean really s- spectacular rather, changes.

   25. AGAubrey de Grey1:04:54

       Yeah. And I mean, I'm not saying that all of us absolutely agree on 100% on everything in the science. Certainly I would say that I'm slightly on the optimistic end of the spectrum of expert opinion. But yeah, my colleagues are n- not all that far behind me in that, in terms of what they would say the timeframes are.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:05:10

       What you're saying in terms of people discussing it in the media makes absolute sense to me, that as soon as that, that Pandora's box gets opened, then people are going to be looking to establish clinics everywhere. And it's, it could be very strange.

   27. AGAubrey de Grey1:05:24

       Well, even if, even if m- even if a lot of these things are not yet available for clinical use, even if some of them are still at the beginning of the clinical trial process and we're still maybe 10 or 15 years away from the real McCoy, you know, that will still be enough to trigger this pandemonium.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:40

       Hmm.

   29. AGAubrey de Grey1:05:41

       And that's why policymakers, decision-makers in every way, in, both in government and in key aspect of industry, need to, I, I call it anticipate the anticipation. They need to be, have a- already thought through and prepared for this change in public expectation of how long they're gonna live.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:06:00

       So you think that this, uh, one day will be a gigantic public issue in terms of elected representatives, that they, they're gonna need to have some sort of an anti-aging policy?
6. 1:15:00 – 1:16:03

   Section 6

   1. AGAubrey de Grey1:15:00

      And initially, no. Initially, this technology was too error-prone. It was prone to do what, what George Church has called genetic vandalism, and, um, make, uh, have what's called off target effects. In other words, basically do other changes to the genome elsewhere that you didn't want. But, of course, people have known this and people have been working really hard to improve the technology, and it's getting to the point now where it's possible to actually use it on humans maybe. You know, it's getting, it's getting there. Um, now, you can't do everything with CRISPR. One thing you definitely can't do with CRISPR is insert new genes into the genome, and that's something we really need to be able to do. But actually, one of our big projects is a kind of two-step thing, where we use CRISPR to make a small change to the genome that allows us to insert large genes where we couldn't previously. Um, so yeah, so, so CRISPR is huge. And it's huge not only in aging research, but across the whole board of biomedical work.

Episode duration: 1:40:42