In my recent podcast chat with Kevin Davies, executive editor of The CRISPR Journal and author of the recently released Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing, it wasn’t until the very end of the conversation that I asked the question that was really top of mind for me. And it’s probably a popular question to anyone plowing through a long-read piece about the revolutionary gene-editing technology:
Pethokoukis: Could CRISPR extend lifespans, in some fashion, so that we’re all living to be 150?
Davies: At the moment, I would say no. Still, I am aware that many companies and many philanthropists are very interested in understanding and exploring the genetics of extended lifespan. I’m not aware of any magic gene that would allow this. That said, if you want to extend lifespan, one thing you want to do is to remove the risks of falling off the wagon and succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease or heart disease or cancer. One way to answer your question is if gene-editing — not just editing embryos, but the whole repertoire of gene-editing — can provide us ways where that we can tackle genetic diseases, certain types of cancer, and perhaps eventually things like Alzheimer’s disease. In that case, then yes, genome-editing will absolutely help us extend the lifespan.
To add to that, we want not just to live to 150 (and have that last 60 years be racked with illness), but also to make the current lifespan healthier and then add on more healthy years. So I certainly can imagine there being plenty of 60-something billionaires right now thinking about projects they could fund.
We already see that, to some degree, with stem cells. Do you remember, maybe 20 years ago, when scientists made big discoveries in stem cells? And we had the whole debate when George W. Bush took office about whether federal funds should be used to engineer new stem cells, because of the fear that it promoted the destruction of embryos. A lot of stem cell clinics and offshore clinics were set up. I know some philanthropists who’ve funded some of these themselves because, pretty much as you suggested, they want to give themselves the secret of near-everlasting life — and live to 120, playing a couple of sets of tennis every day. I’m as skeptical about that as I am about genome-editing, providing these sort of magical and fantastical theories. Then again, this book is about a revolution in science technology, and the amazing thing about our field is that you can never predict where the technology is going to go. So I can wax and wane about how CRISPR is the greatest technology since sliced bread, and five years from now, somebody may well come up with something that makes this look quaint and outdated.
Some added context to that last Davies quote: Back in August 2001, President George W. Bush gave an 11-minute speech about what he called “a complex and difficult issue, an issue that is one of the most profound of our time”: research on human embryonic stem cells. Bush told the American public that while he would allow federal taxpayer money to be used for research into stem cells from human embryos, the research would be limited to already extracted cells. Moreover, the government would not support the destruction of new embryos. At the time, some observers thought the decision would end up being the most important of the Bush presidency. And in the wake of that speech, the Bush administration created a council on bioethics (chaired by Leon Kass, now an AEI emeritus scholar). Life extension was one of the issues discussed by the council, including its report Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness. And one aspect of that discussion was the impact of longer lives on economic vitality. From that report:
A society reshaped by age-retardation could certainly benefit from the wisdom and experience of more generations of older people, and from the peace, patience, and crucial encouragement that is often a wonderful gift of those who are no longer forging their identity or caught up in economic or social competition. But at the same time, generation after generation would reach and remain in their prime for many decades. Sons might no longer surpass their fathers in vigor just as they prepared to become fathers themselves. The mature generation would have no obvious reason to make way for the next as the years passed, if its peak became a plateau. The succession of generations could be obstructed by a glut of the able. … The same glut might also affect other institutions, private and public. From the small business to the city council, from the military to the Fortune 500 corporation, generational succession might be disrupted, as the rationale for retirement diminished. Again, these institutions would benefit from greater experience at the top, but they might find it far more difficult to adjust to change. With the slowing of the cycles of succession might also come the slowing of the cycles of innovation and adaptation in these institutions.
No surprise to regular readers, I’m particularly interested in the innovation impact. Indeed, there has been considerable debate lately about the impact of an aging American society on entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly high-impact startups of the sort with unicorn aspirations. And it seems a bit of age and experience might not be so bad. From “Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship,” a 2018 NBER working paper by Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin Jones, J. Daniel Kim, and Javier Miranda:
Many observers, and many investors, believe that young people are especially likely to produce the most successful new firms. We use administrative data at the U.S. Census Bureau to study the ages of founders of growth-oriented start-ups in the past decade. Our primary finding is that successful entrepreneurs are middle-aged, not young. The mean founder age for the 1 in 1,000 fastest growing new ventures is 45.0. The findings are broadly similar when considering high technology sectors, entrepreneurial hubs, and successful firm exits. Prior experience in the specific industry predicts much greater rates of entrepreneurial success. These findings strongly reject common hypotheses that emphasize youth as a key trait of successful entrepreneurs.
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