You talk a lot about fundamentals and come to a conclusion about what projects should be funded on the margin. It seems to me that to make good calls about what should be funded on the margin we actually have to look about what money on the margin buys.
It’s a bit strange to call for less longevity research spending both complain that the FDA doesn’t allow clinical trials when the clinical trial for aging that the FDA did approve is hold back by lack of funding.
With an $41.68 billion NIH budget it seems to me that paying 8-figures for a Metformin trial is on the margin a decent project even if we shouldn’t expect that Metformin will add decades of life.
The SENS Foundation seems to have a yearly budget of <5,000,000$. Funding it’s research project with a 8 or 9-figure budget would also make sense to me.
The talk about the list of limited causes of aging never really makes sense to me. Adult humans don’t seem to grow new muscle cells and some muscle cells die over time. Given that the dead one don’t get replaced, that seems to me like aging but it’s not on the list. The list seems also very driven by molecular biology and doesn’t include sensor motor amnesia with I consider on factor of aging.
Despite how depressingly underrated longevity research is, technologies directly targeting the experience of suffering are underrated even more, with the possible exception of psychedelic therapy (by tech) and non-addictive painkillers (by pharma).
That seems to me like a strange thing to say. A lot of pharma research goes into developing antidepressiva that help people who suffer a lot suffer less. There are also various people in mainstream psychology who think about how to get people to suffer less.
You talk a lot about fundamentals and come to a conclusion about what projects should be funded on the margin. It seems to me that to make good calls about what should be funded on the margin we actually have to look about what money on the margin buys.
It’s a bit strange to call for less longevity research spending both complain that the FDA doesn’t allow clinical trials when the clinical trial for aging that the FDA did approve is hold back by lack of funding.
With an $41.68 billion NIH budget it seems to me that paying 8-figures for a Metformin trial is on the margin a decent project even if we shouldn’t expect that Metformin will add decades of life.
The SENS Foundation seems to have a yearly budget of <5,000,000$. Funding it’s research project with a 8 or 9-figure budget would also make sense to me.
The talk about the list of limited causes of aging never really makes sense to me. Adult humans don’t seem to grow new muscle cells and some muscle cells die over time. Given that the dead one don’t get replaced, that seems to me like aging but it’s not on the list. The list seems also very driven by molecular biology and doesn’t include sensor motor amnesia with I consider on factor of aging.
That seems to me like a strange thing to say. A lot of pharma research goes into developing antidepressiva that help people who suffer a lot suffer less. There are also various people in mainstream psychology who think about how to get people to suffer less.