Critiques of this potential immortality method

In summary: Ultrasound does have a lot of therapeutic uses and can be used to damage tissue, trigger the release of drugs from drug delivery systems and alter cell behaviour in desirable ways. But it simply cannot be used in the way you describe to wave a magic want over any area and selectively destroy any damaged tissue (without side effects) before coordinating regeneration.Similarly "pixie dust" does nothing, you've been scammed on that one. Fingertips have the capacity to regrow anyway and jamming a powder of pig ECM does nothing but get you news coverage and investment. Even if it did help in some way that's no where near "regrowing any tissue
  • #1
immortalist
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Focused ultrasound is a non-invasive surgical method http://www.fusfoundation.org/MRgFUS-Overview/about-focused-ultrasound-surgery [Broken]

It's non-invasive imaging method can be MRI or even ultrasound itself.

So we have a method for precisely destroying and precisely releasing chemical in any part of the body.

(Another method is precision x-rays/gamma rays like in the cyberknife system, but let's ignore that for now)

If those chemicals can grow any part of the body too, like the "pixie dust" of Stephen Bodylak described below (extracellular matrix powder) then we also have mechanism for growing any part of the body precisely.

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/13-how-pig-guts-became-hope-regenerating-human-limbs/article_view?b_start:int=3&-C=

These robotic machines would be used everyday to selectively destroy/grow all parts of the body, and so, over time, all parts of the body become new again. Thus defeating aging and the diseases associated with it, hence immortality.

To do carry this all out, set up 100,000 robotic ultrasound machines in a warehouse, and automatically robotically (using machine learning/computer vision) run experiments en masse on mice/pigs etc. to determine the correct intensity/dosage for destroy/growing any particular parts of the body. (Use machine learning to transfer knowledge of how mice/pig dosages translate to human size/levels).

Thus, a potential immortality device in a few months.

Another thought, whole body vibrations are used to grow all parts of the body (with circulating growth factors) and the focused ultrasound is used to selectively destroy the older parts (over time, safely).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_body_vibration

Also, ultrasound is has been demonstrated to encourage growth/repair of tissues in the body and in the lab (it's the basis of therapeutic ultrasound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_ultrasound). So it might to destroy/grow without even the extra growth chemicals.

What are critiques of the above. I'm looking at this from the point of view of what is possible given unlimited funds (1-100 billion dollars).
 
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  • #2
Sorry but we are nowhere near being able to regenerate the body to the extent you are discussing. Ultrasound does have a lot of therapeutic uses and can be used to damage tissue, trigger the release of drugs from drug delivery systems and alter cell behaviour in desirable ways. But it simply cannot be used in the way you describe to wave a magic want over any area and selectively destroy any damaged tissue (without side effects) before coordinating regeneration.

Similarly "pixie dust" does nothing, you've been scammed on that one. Fingertips have the capacity to regrow anyway and jamming a powder of pig ECM does nothing but get you news coverage and investment. Even if it did help in some way that's no where near "regrowing any tissue we like". Recently there have been successes with simple tissues and organs such as tracheas, bladders, skin, bone and a lot of research into other tissues but it is very early days. We are certainly not months away from whole body regeneration, we're probably decades away from anything as complex as a heart or lung even though current research in those areas is promising.
 
  • #3
Thank you for the reply.

However, I think you misinterpreted what I was asking for.

I am asking for a future hypothetical where unlimited funds are available.

Of course that selective destructive/regeneration capability is not available today. I'm speaking about whether it is theoretically possible. On that front, I'd like to see proper critiques along the lines of what biological problems might be posed.

Also, the pixie dust is not a scam, as was often portrayed. The fingertip stuff was 4 years ago. It's since been used in regrowing muscles and skin in soldiers. However, I don't want to focus on that, other growth factors probably exist too.

The above in one sense has to exist somehow, because regeneration has been observed in animals like salamanders, but even more importantly, humans grow from a single cell. So biological mechanisms exist for growth. Pushing them to do so again, while destroying aging parts, is what I'm looking to explore.

So again, I reiterate, I'm looking for more than simple statements of "it isn't possible etc.", but more detailed discussion of the issues. And also, there is no limit on funds. So questions of decades vs months are essentially irrelevant. What you could do in decades can usually be done in months if the work is parallelized and done on a large scale.

Thank you for the reply, but I'm looking for something more substantial. (This is an initial brainstorming, from which proposals will be discussed with open-minded funders. Everyone stands to benefit if this goes anywhere ).
 
  • #4
immortalist said:
Thank you for the reply.

However, I think you misinterpreted what I was asking for.

I am asking for a future hypothetical where unlimited funds are available.
Sorry but that's not what this site is for. We're not going to waste time overspeculating on what future technology might bring.
immortalist said:
Of course that selective destructive/regeneration capability is not available today. I'm speaking about whether it is theoretically possible. On that front, I'd like to see proper critiques along the lines of what biological problems might be posed.
It is not theoretically possible to use ultra sound in the way you mean. A primary concern in regenerative medicine is how to produce the cell and tissue behaviour that is desirable. Whilst ultrasound is useful it simply cannot be used on everything, this is true of all techniques as the same environmental conditions can have drastically different effects on different cells.
immortalist said:
Also, the pixie dust is not a scam, as was often portrayed. The fingertip stuff was 4 years ago. It's since been used in regrowing muscles and skin in soldiers. However, I don't want to focus on that, other growth factors probably exist too.
There have been a variety of skin regeneration techniques released onto the market, some of which involve specific extra cellular matrix formulations but the idea that this "pixie dust" is some panacea is simply nonsense. Every cell in your body is surrounded by ECM, throwing more pig ECM at it is of very limited use. If you have peer-reviewed papers on this topic you would like to discuss please post them.
immortalist said:
The above in one sense has to exist somehow, because regeneration has been observed in animals like salamanders, but even more importantly, humans grow from a single cell. So biological mechanisms exist for growth. Pushing them to do so again, while destroying aging parts, is what I'm looking to explore.
Regeneration in other animals is unlikely to be transferable although we may learn something interesting along the way. At the moment you are asking about a huge field that is relatively young. I suggest rather than asking broad questions on this you should look into regenerative medicine, specifically tissue engineering and come back with more specific topics of discussion.
immortalist said:
So again, I reiterate, I'm looking for more than simple statements of "it isn't possible etc.", but more detailed discussion of the issues. And also, there is no limit on funds. So questions of decades vs months are essentially irrelevant. What you could do in decades can usually be done in months if the work is parallelized and done on a large scale.

Thank you for the reply, but I'm looking for something more substantial. (This is an initial brainstorming, from which proposals will be discussed with open-minded funders. Everyone stands to benefit if this goes anywhere ).
Sorry but if the thread goes in that direction it will be locked. Whole body regeneration is too speculative for this site which, as the rules state, exists for the discussion and teaching of established science.
 
  • #5
Look, I think you're completely missing the nature of my post. I'm looking for hypotheticals, I thought this was a physics site. I'm well aware the current state of the art is there yet, otherwise it would be big news that death has been eradicated. The pixie dust thing I had seen in a BBC documentary from this year in which they actually visited the lab (Frontline Medicine - visited lab of Stephen Bodylak). Maybe they got scammed by Dr Bodylak, but that wasn't the main point of what I was asking for. I was looking for what are the possible roadblocks. I'm in touch with distinguished scientists on this matter, I was just looking to crowdsource something they might have missed. If no one here has the background to make a specific point, that's fine. I just think you're misunderstanding what I'm posting and getting offended when I attempt to clarify this. I'm sincerely thankful for your attempt though.
 
  • #6
I have a background in this field but you aren't raising a specific point. You are asking for something to give us immortality and offered a few methods that I have explained are not viable. As for hypothetical this subject is overly speculative which is against PF rules. If you find something specific you would like to discuss then feel free but this is not the place to overspeculate or attempt to acquire research funding.
 
  • #7
immortalist said:
... I thought this was a physics site ...

Like many of us (well, me anyway) you probably neglected to read the rules when you first joined the site.

This IS a physics forum, and an amazingly good one, but as Ryan pointed out it is not a forum for personal speculation, it is for discussion of established science. This annoys new folks sometimes, but it just the nature of the site. There are forums where your kind of speculation is discussed, this just isn't one of them.
 
  • #8
Ok, I get it. The physics of things is acceptable except when it's on the medical forum, when it's branded speculative. Some distinguished researchers I've spoken with don't think it's too speculative, but anyway, let's abide by the confused rules on here. Anyway, thank you for the unbridled skepticism.
 
  • #9
You seem confused, the forum rules are an artefact of the purpose of the forum which is to teach and discuss mainstream science. Overly speculative topics no matter what scientific discipline they fall into are not allowed. Yes some distinguished researchers have talked about the concept of biological immortality but that doesn't mean they aren't overly speculative and therefore not a suitable topic for this forum. There is often confusion that our purpose and rules are a comment on the nature of speculation in science but they are not.

As I said before if you come across a specific paper you would like to discuss with regards to this topic (i.e. any treatment that will result in longer life expectancy) then feel free to post.
 
  • #10
What is physically possible and what is currently medically possible are two different things. I had assumed this forum would allow the discussion of what is physically possible. I'm not a professional biomedical scientist and I haven't had the time to look through the literature on this, that's why I'm on this forum in the first place. I'm at the beginning stages of this.

I am also interested in asking what are the views of this forum on ECMO as discussed in this lecture.
It was mentioned that it currently can go to a few months. I'd like to know what are the things missing to take this to years or even decades. I know there is literature on it, but as a non-professional just starting out to get an education in this, I'd like to see an outline for the layman.
 
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  • #11
immortalist said:
What is physically possible and what is currently medically possible are two different things. I had assumed this forum would allow the discussion of what is physically possible. I'm not a professional biomedical scientist and I haven't had the time to look through the literature on this, that's why I'm on this forum in the first place. I'm at the beginning stages of this.

I am also interested in asking what are the views of this forum on ECMO as discussed in this lecture.
It was mentioned that it currently can go to a few months. I'd like to know what are the things missing to take this to years or even decades. I know there is literature on it, but as a non-professional just starting out to get an education in this, I'd like to see an outline for the layman.


Ryan is asking for you to post a link to an acceptable peer-reviewed mainstream journal article. A YouTube video is not acceptable as a source. The list of acceptable journals is given in the Rules link at the top of the page. You agreed to abide by those rules when you joined the PF.
 
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  • #12
You guys are really piling on there. So now I'm expected to be a semi-expert with papers in hand. Even a lecture by a pioneer in a field is too low brow.

OK then, let's just it leave at that. I think it's a political game now and I've accidentally offended the big wigs on here.
 
  • #13
Ryan, what do you think of this piece:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v469/n7328/full/nature09603.html

I've been led to understand that DNA replication errors are a big part of ageing, and that eventually the telomeres simply run out of length to continue replicating the chromosome. Might telomerase treatments give some viable life extension?

If this is piggybacking I'll start a new thread.
 
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  • #14
You could have read the rules and done a search for peer reveiwed papers in acceptable journals. Anyone can do a simple web search and find such papers. If you aren't a college student or in academics or research, etc..., you may only get an abstract without paying for the paper, but at least you'd be able to present the abstract of what specifically you wish to discuss. Doing such searches would likely help show you what is and is not considered possible.
 
  • #15
immortalist said:
You guys are really piling on there. So now I'm expected to be a semi-expert with papers in hand. Even a lecture by a pioneer in a field is too low brow.

OK then, let's just it leave at that. I think it's a political game now and I've accidentally offended the big wigs on here.
I'm sorry but you really are mistaken. Firstly with regards to us being snobbish and piling on you and secondly with the expectation that we are a port of call for research. Your original question has been answered with regards to whether or not the technology to do this exists, you've then gone on to ask us to speculate on the nature of technologies that do not exist which is against the rules. No one has been impolite or judgemental, you are over reacting here. More than once I have offered you the option to find something specific you would like to discuss so that it can be. You don't have to be a "semi-expert" to use a search engine and do some learning for yourself. You've even done some initial readings so it isn't much to ask that you focus on the specifics of what you have read rather than a huge field.
 
  • #16
I did give links, for Focused Ultrasound Foundation, Discover magazine, lecture by a pioneer in ECMO at a prestigious medical school. I understand the purpose of rules like that, it's to keep out snake oil websites, but the links I gave are not that quite obviously.

But OK. I will search for papers on this and then come back (though it would be more sensible if the rules are changed on this, you'll needlessly discourage beginners).
 
  • #17
H2Bro said:
Ryan, what do you think of this piece:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v469/n7328/full/nature09603.html

I've been led to understand that DNA replication errors are a big part of ageing, and that eventually the telomeres simply run out of length to continue replicating the chromosome. Might telomerase treatments give some viable life extension?

If this is piggybacking I'll start a new thread.
It's interesting but there are some concerns to note. Telomeres are a cancer defence mechanism by imposing a replication limit. In cells that regularly replicate as part of their role telomerase is produced to elongate the telomeres, in all other cells it is expressed minimally at best. In this study the researchers were using mice already deficient in telomerase expression and showed that reactivation lead to a slow down in tissue degradation. The implication is that it might be possible to slow down some of the effects of ageing however if a treatment was applied to restore telomere length in a variety of cells it could lead to significant increase in cancer risks.
 
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  • #18
immortalist said:
I did give links, for Focused Ultrasound Foundation, Discover magazine, lecture by a pioneer in ECMO at a prestigious medical school. I understand the purpose of rules like that, it's to keep out snake oil websites, but the links I gave are not that quite obviously.
Are requirements are for peer-reviewed, published literature. This is a sensible standard when discussing scientific issues as it is the standard used in the scientific community. Second hand sources run the risk of being wrong, overly-simplified, biased etc.
immortalist said:
But OK. I will search for papers on this and then come back (though it would be more sensible if the rules are changed on this, you'll needlessly discourage beginners).
In my opinion the biggest problem with the rules is that people don't read them and then backtrack when they realize this site is not a place where anything goes for discussion. It has a specific aim which is not served by lower standards.
 
  • #19
About the telomeres. This ties in with what I was looking for about focused ultrasound or cyberknife. If there is a risk of cancer with the regrowing of telomeres, that risk can be mitigated by regular targeting of cancer with the beams. So a steady state of continual safe regeneration occurs.
 
  • #20
immortalist said:
About the telomeres. This ties in with what I was looking for about focused ultrasound or cyberknife. If there is a risk of cancer with the regrowing of telomeres, that risk can be mitigated by regular targeting of cancer with the beams. So a steady state of continual safe regeneration occurs.
Whilst focused ultrasound and this cyberknife systems could have good applications in specific cancer treatments they are not panaceas. Furthermore the risk of cancer would be for the individual's lifetime after such a treatment, not during.
 
  • #21
My original post was about regular, even daily, treatment with beams. Get the cost down to a few hundred/thousand dollars and have them in everyone's home. Fighting cancer would be a continual everyday affair, like eating food, to sustain life. Furthermore, I don't see why all cancers couldn't be dealt with in this way, after all, they are just masses of cells that you kill with the beams.
 
  • #22
immortalist said:
My original post was about regular, even daily, treatment with beams. Get the cost down to a few hundred/thousand dollars and have them in everyone's home. Fighting cancer would be a continual everyday affair, like eating food, to sustain life. Furthermore, I don't see why all cancers couldn't be dealt with in this way, after all, they are just masses of cells that you kill with the beams.
Cancer is very low on the list of causes of death.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310.pdf
 
  • #23
But we're not talking about cancer only here. We're talking about kickstarting regeneration with telomerase so things like hearts and lungs and pancreas regrow, then making sure too much growth or cancer doesn't occur by zapping it with beams.
 
  • #24
immortalist said:
My original post was about regular, even daily, treatment with beams. Get the cost down to a few hundred/thousand dollars and have them in everyone's home. Fighting cancer would be a continual everyday affair, like eating food, to sustain life. Furthermore, I don't see why all cancers couldn't be dealt with in this way, after all, they are just masses of cells that you kill with the beams.
Cancer identification and treatment is not so simple. In some cases by the time a tumour is identified it is too late and simply excising the tumour can kill the patient. You can't just hack away at the body and expect the patient to recover. In addition in other forms of cancer like leukaemia tumours do not present. That's tap dancing past the assertion that these things could be sufficiently automated.
immortalist said:
But we're not talking about cancer only here. We're talking about kickstarting regeneration with telomerase so things like hearts and lungs and pancreas regrow, then making sure too much growth or cancer doesn't occur by zapping it with beams.
Telomerase treatments would not regenerate anything nor regrow organs (and how exactly would an in vivo regrowing of an organ like a heart work :rolleyes: it's not like you can wait for it to grow), at best they would slow down the degradation.

EDIT: I should also mention that telomerase treatments for life extension might not work if the telomerase theory of ageing doesn't hold strongly or if there are additional currently unknown side effects of messing with the Hayflick limit (given the highly interlinked nature of biological systems the latter would not surprise me).
 
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  • #25
You earlier indicated telomerase was a potential treatment with side effect risk of cancer. And your arguments about hacking away are disingenuous. The cyberknife system is a commercial and automated cancer therapy. Focused ultrasound is also being commercialized. You might have a point about leukemia but I'm not sure of that since you seem to be blindly arguing against anything I say. You need to calm down pal, I'm not your enemy.
 
  • #26
immortalist said:
You need to calm down pal, I'm not your enemy.
You seem to be treating any criticism as a personal attack, this would suggest that it isn't me that needs to re-evaluate how to post.
immortalist said:
And your arguments about hacking away are disingenuous.
Not really, I was pointing out that cancer treatment is not as simple as destroying the tumour.
immortalist said:
The cyberknife system is a commercial and automated cancer therapy.
It is emphatically not automated. You should fully research an idea before trying to offer it as a potential treatment. It didn't take me longer than a minute to find the nearest cyberknife centre to me, watch an information video and find out that far from being automated treatment with a cyberknife involves case review by a multidisciplinary team and customised programming of a procedure suitable for the patient's condition along with multiple steps of assessment and need for scans and possibly surgery to implant tracers.
http://thecyberknifecentre.com/en-uk/welcome
immortalist said:
you seem to be blindly arguing against anything I say.
No I'm trying to get you to think rather than simply throwing out things that clearly you have not bothered to learn about in depth. Your posts imply to me that you are not really interested in learning the science here at all but rather are just filtering in the name of anything that fits within your ideal of biological immortality. When you start with such confirmation bias you aren't going to go anywhere productive.
 
  • #27
Well, you're unrepentently anti-what-I-say. Kudos for consistency. I'll just let go of discussing those here, I won't get a reasonable response.

Do you have any ideas of your own about potential life-extension ideas. I'm talking about multi-decade extension.
 
  • #28
immortalist said:
Well, you're unrepentently anti-what-I-say. Kudos for consistency. I'll just let go of discussing those here, I won't get a reasonable response.
I'm not anti-what-you-say, I'm trying to help you by pointing out why your suggestions are at best incomplete and worst misinformed. Frankly your attitude stinks. You've automatically judged me and others in this thread as being unreasonable seemingly because we haven't told you what you want to hear.
immortalist said:
Do you have any ideas of your own about potential life-extension ideas. I'm talking about multi-decade extension.
I can't give a figure on how many years something may lengthen a life but aside from obvious things like eating healthy, exercising, practising good hygiene etc future advances in life expectancy will come naturally from better medical treatments. Regenerative medicine as a field offers huge potential in being able to replace damaged tissues with healthy ones whilst avoiding many disadvantages of transplants such as the scarcity of donor tissues and organs and the need for immunosuppressants after the operation. Similarly better treatments for age-related diseases and cancer (of which the two methods you suggest can be part of) will push life expectancy further still.
 
  • #29
That's great, but you've just glossed over everything I was interested in hearing. I could have read that in any newspaper.

I'm more interested in -

What are the fundamental roadblocks? What exactly is stopping immortality? What kinds of machines could accelerate research or make things possible? Could industrialization of some aspect of research accelerate it?
 
  • #30
immortalist said:
That's great, but you've just glossed over everything I was interested in hearing. I could have read that in any newspaper.

I'm more interested in -

What are the fundamental roadblocks? What exactly is stopping immortality? What kinds of machines could accelerate research or make things possible? Could industrialization of some aspect of research accelerate it?
Again you are not listening. You need to go do some research. Learn about the basics, then ask specific questions about specific items you do not understand. We are not set up to write courses on broad topics. There are books and websites that do have literature pertaining to the broad area in which you are interested. That's not what we do.
 

1. What is this potential immortality method?

This potential immortality method refers to the idea of extending human lifespan indefinitely through various scientific and technological advancements.

2. What are some potential critiques of this method?

Some potential critiques of this method include ethical concerns, potential overpopulation issues, and the possibility of only the wealthy having access to this technology.

3. How feasible is this potential immortality method?

The feasibility of this method is still uncertain as it involves complex scientific and technological advancements that have not yet been fully developed or tested.

4. What are the potential benefits of this method?

The potential benefits of this method include the possibility of extending human lifespan, potentially eliminating age-related diseases, and allowing individuals to continue living and contributing to society for longer periods of time.

5. What are some potential alternatives to this method?

Some potential alternatives to this method include focusing on improving overall health and quality of life rather than solely extending lifespan, investing in medical advancements to treat age-related diseases, and addressing social and economic factors that contribute to mortality rates.

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