Research
Aging (senescence) increases vulnerability to age-associated diseases, whereas genetics determines vulnerability or resistance between species and individuals within species. Some age-related changes (like graying hair) are said to be unrelated to an increase in mortality. But some biogerontologists believe that the same underlying changes that cause graying hair also increase mortality in other organ systems and that understanding the incidence of age-associated disease will advance knowledge of the biology of senescence just as knowledge of childhood diseases advanced knowledge of human development.
Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) is a research strategy which aims to repair a few "root causes" for age-related illness and degeneration, as well as develop medical procedures to periodically repair all such damage in the human body, thereby maintaining a youth-like state indefinitely. So far, the SENS programme has identified seven types of aging-related damage, and feasible solutions have been outlined for each. However, critics argue that the SENS agenda is extremely optimistic at best, and that the aging process is too complex and little-understood for SENS to be scientific or implementable in the foreseeable future.
Read more about this topic: Aging-associated Diseases
Famous quotes containing the word research:
“The working woman may be quick to see any problems with children as her fault because she isn’t as available to them. However, the fact that she is employed is rarely central to the conflict. And overall, studies show, being employed doesn’t have negative effects on children; carefully done research consistently makes this clear.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“After all, the ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth.”
—Helene Deutsch (1884–1982)
“To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities ... than a rigorously enforced divorce from war- oriented research and all connected enterprises.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)