Google Versus Aging

If you haven't heard that Google is now funding research into human aging and lifespan, they'll be very disappointed. There's been plenty of publicity, which I find sort of interesting, considering that there's not too much to announce: The Time article—and a Google blog post released at the same time—provided scant detail about what the new company, called Calico, will actually do. According to Time, the company, to be based somewhere in the Bay Area, will place long-term bets on unspecified technologies that could help fight the diseases of aging. Page did tell Time he thinks biomedical researchers may have focused on the wrong problems and that health-care companies don’t think long-term enough. “In some industries it takes 10 or 20 years to go from an idea to something being real. Health care is certainly one of those areas,” Page told Time. “We should shoot for the things that are really, really important, so 10 or 20 years from now we have those things done.” The company’s initial investors are Google and Arthur Levinson, also chairman of Apple’s board and that of biotech company Genentech. Levinson, a trained biochemist, will be the CEO of Calico, which the The New York Times reported is short for California Life Company. I'm fine with this. Actually, I'm more than fine - I think it's a good idea, and I also think that it's a good idea for the money coming into it to be long-term, patient money, because it's going to have to be. I think that hum...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: Aging and Lifespan Source Type: blogs