Jeff Bezos has invested billions of dollars into Altos Labs, a startup that aims to develop anti-aging technology. (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like Jeff Bezos' life-long mission to achieve immortality is finally taking shape! The Amazon founder has already started the process by employing top scientists and Hal Barron, a chief scientific officer from GlaxoSmithKline, to help develop the death-defying technology under Altos Labs. So far, Bezos and other billionaires have invested billions of dollars in the company.
"I am deeply honored to have been offered this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead such a unique company with a transformative mission to reverse disease," Barron said in a press release from Altos Labs.
Barron is working alongside a team of scientists, including Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, who won the 2012 Nobel Prize for his stem cell research. Jennifer Doudna, 2020's chemistry Nobel Prize co-winner for her part in creating CRISPR, a gene-editing tool, has also been recruited to help achieve age-reversing technology.
In addition to hiring top scientists and doctors, the startup announced that it received over $3 billion worth of funds at launch. Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner is also pouring in money to help the startup develop anti-aging technology.
Overall, the company wants to achieve biological reprogramming, which involves rejuvenating mature cells so they can repair a person's aging body. This could also help cure age-related diseases such as dementia. Of course, it will take time to see if Altos Labs' ambitions of retaining youth come true. At least everyone knows that if money and the world's best doctors fail to make death-defying technology, then nothing else could work.
"Altos seeks to decipher the pathways of cellular rejuvenation programming to create a completely new approach to medicine, one based on the emerging concepts of cellular health," said Rick Klausner, chief scientist and founder of Altos Labs. "Remarkable work over the last few years beginning to quantify cellular health and the mechanisms behind that, coupled with the ability to effectively and safely reprogram cells and tissues via rejuvenation pathways, opens this new vista into the medicine of the future. Altos begins with many of the leading scientists who are creating this new science. Together, we are building a company where many of the world's best scientists can collaborate internally and externally and develop their research with the speed, mission, and focus of private enterprise. Our success will depend upon a culture of intense collaboration, enthusiasm, and openness."
It seems like those super-wealthy have chased this dream for eternity. It hasn't worked yet. It's like alchemy. Elixirs. Magic rocks. Etc. I have a feeling this endeavor may result in the age-old outcome of zilch.
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