Google works on eternal life

Soon immortal: Google's daughter Calico wants to accelerate research

09/23/2013

It is one of the oldest human dreams: Eternal Life - The desire for immortality. A breakthrough in this area would certainly become one of the largest outlets that have emerged so far. Anti-aging products are very popular, even though there is no scientific evidence for their work. Nevertheless, more than a hundred people have been frozen after their death in order to benefit from any progress in the future. The desire to be able to heal pretty much any illness at some point is deep in the minds of many. The search engine company Google is now researching the algorithm of immortality. For this the company founded the company Calcio. His boss, Art Levinson, ex-chief of the biotechnology company Genentech, receives for the search a currently unspecified sum of Google. Together with a small team he should succeed in the breakthrough.

Can cancer be cured that way??
That sounds like a utopia at first, but Google dares a possible and well thought-out venture into a future market. The market of so-called regenerative medicine is currently estimated at about 1.6 billion dollars.

For many analysts, there is no question that this market can grow tenfold by 2025. Why not get closer to the logic of mathematics with the solution?

Big Data is the magic word. An attempt is made to get an order into the gigantic amounts of data by means of systemic evaluation in order to detect possible connections and patterns. In the financial world, decisions have been made for billions of dollars in investment for quite some time. So why not come to the formula for cancer healing in the vast amount of available data on the track. Recently, Google boss Sergey Brin has invested a few million in the start-up company 23anMe, which is working on a database for genomes. In conversations, among others Time Magazine with Brin on Calcio, Levinson and his co-workers and with the help of the gigantic server park of Google the databases of the Alterskrankheitsforschung new durchforsten.

Extend the life by decades
From the medical point of view, this is not necessarily the most urgent problem. For the medical profession is rather an increase in the quality of life in old age at the center of any research. For example, in their opinion, Google's know-how could be used more for vaccination campaigns, nutrition programs, or the nationwide provision of medicines to developing countries. According to Google boss Larry Page Calico can increase the human lifespan equal to several decades. Especially in cancer research, the start-up company could achieve the greatest success. One of the most exciting questions has to be answered: How and why do we age? But the computing power of the Google servers will also reach their limits. (Fr)

Picture: Alexander Klaus