The Search For Immortality

J. Craig Venter And Other Billionaire Investors Are Using Technology To Find The Fountain Of Youth .

- Harry Jaffe

FLAP, WHOOSH , FLAP, WHOOSH .

I’m lying on an examination table watching blood pumping through my heart. This footage will serve as one piece of a puzzle being assembled by a team of scientists. How long will I be around? What might cut my life short? How can I stay healthier longer?

This 4D echocardiogram, along with other high-octane imaging tests and a full sequencing of my genes, will be evaluated at Health Nucleus, a clinic run by Professor J. Craig Venter. Back in the 1990s, Venter led the charge to create the first complete map of human genes, or genome. Now he’s proselytising on gene sequencing and tools for extending human life.

“Data like this gives you a chance to take control of your life,” Venter says as we sit in his expansive office in the La Jolla, California, headquarters of his research enterprise, Human Longevity Inc. “Health care has always been a reactive system; we want to transform it into a predictive system.”

Dressed in a flannel shirt, faded jeans, and running shoes, Venter looks like he should be relaxed. But his brow is furrowed, his eyes locked on mine. His face still turns ruddy when he’s talking about pushing the frontiers of genetics research.

Venter is part of a club of billionaires deploying millions in the war on aging. PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel is funding scientific efforts to stall aging. Google wants to find high-tech solutions to aging. Oracle’s Larry Ellison has sunk hundreds of millions into anti-aging research, and told his biographer, “Death has never made any sense to me.”