Google's Calico aims to fight aging and 'solve death'

How Google's Calico aims to fight aging and 'solve death'

Since the early twentieth century life expectancy has improved in most parts of the world. But what if life could be extended past its current boundaries? In this gallery, CNN Labs takes a look at some of the current research being done into life extension. First up, cryonics -- a discipline where a person's body is preserved in low temperatures, often using liquid nitrogen, in the hope of resuscitating them in the future. Here, the head of the Russian cryonics firm KrioRus, Danila Medvedev, looks inside a low-temperature human storage unit just outside Moscow.

The death of death?

• Google's new company Calico will 'tackle aging and illness'
• Many believe that Calico will take a 'big-data' approach to speed the way to health care discoveries
• Exploratory disciplines including cryonics, cloning and nanotechnology hope to extend human life

 It is an age-old question: will humankind ever defeat old age?

Plenty of skin care companies would like us to believe so. And now, the multinational tech giant Google would like us to think it might be possible too.

Last month Google announced a new medical company called Calico, whose explicit aim is to take on aging itself. But what will Google's approach be? And what other research into prolonging life already exists?

With its proliferation of businesses, products and services, it would be easy to forget that not so very long ago Google was just a search engine. Today, offshoots of the sprawling global corporation can be found researching self-driving cars, developing their own smart phones and tablets and even launching giant balloons into near space.

Read more: 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real'

Amid this growing portfolio of diffuse interests and initiatives has been added their latest company: Calico.

To really make a difference in human health you need to tackle the aging process
João Pedro de Magalhães, biologist

Calico -- or the California Life Company -- has been set up to research subjects related to aging and its associated diseases. Announcing Calico at a media briefing, Google said that the new and independent company will largely focus on age-attendant conditions such as Alzheimer's, cancer and heart disease.

Larry Page, Google's ever youthful CEO said: "Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives."

But the question is, what will Calico actually do? At the moment the company isn't giving much detail away: "(Incoming CEO Arthur Levinson) and I are excited about tackling aging and illness," Page wrote in his Google+ blog post. But repeated requests from CNN to interview either Page or Levinson were politely declined.

Read more: Scientists build human brain inside a computer

In the absence of any real information, many commentators have speculated that Calico will pursue a 'big-data' approach to health: gathering massive amounts of information from patients and 'crunching it' to help speed the way to health care discoveries. Some have suggested that Calico's new CEO will take the view that the best way to tackle aging is to focus on preventing diseases.

Aubrey de Grey

The goal of Calico is to keep people healthy irrespective of their age, and ill-health is the main cause of death, so increased longevity will be an inevitable and excellent side-effect of such work.
Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer of SENS Foundation

Aubrey de Grey, an expert in the field of regenerative medicine, told CNN that it is too soon to speculate on what Google's approach will be: "in relation to Calico, I think it's vital to keep in mind that there is essentially no concrete information about their planned direction and emphasis, and any guess that they will take a heavily data-driven approach is no more than a guess."

However, he does think that Calico will not limit its focus to a single disease: "The statements from Page and Levinson thus far indicate quite strongly that the emphasis will not be just cancer, or even just a range of specific diseases, but will be 'aging itself': Page in particular has highlighted the paltry longevity gains that would arise even from totally eliminating cancer."

João Pedro de Magalhães, a Portuguese biologist who leads the Integrative Genomics of Aging group at the University of Liverpool, agrees: "From what I've read, I don't think the company will mostly focus on cancer. In the Time interview Larry Page clearly states that solving cancer is 'not as big an advance as you might think'. This is reminiscent of what experts studying aging have been saying for a while, which is that to really make a difference in human health and longevity you need to tackle the aging process rather than individual age-related diseases."

Read more: Secrets spilled in life's final minutes

So where might Calico's focus lie? A broad range of technologies and therapies that promise life extension through different means are currently being researched and tested. CNN Labs takes a look across the scientific landscape to bring you the view from the front line of the war against aging.

Cryonics

Cryonics is a process where the body -- or occasionally just the head -- is suspended in liquid nitrogen to 'preserve' it indefinitely. The idea is that in the future the body will be able to be resuscitated and brought back to life.

Once the preserve of celebrities and multimillionaires, cryonics is now gaining traction among the broader public. Several months ago, The Sunday Times reported that three senior staff at Oxford University have signed up to have their bodies frozen with two U.S.-based cyonics organizations: the Cryonics Institute and the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

The head of Russian cryonics firm KrioRus, Danila Medvedev, looks inside a liquid nitrogen filled human storage unit

The cost of cryonics can vary wildly. The lowest price at the Cryonics Institute is reportedly $28,000 for 'cryopreservation'; Alcor Life charges customers up to $200,000 for similar services. But does it work?

The Cryonics Institute underline on their website that, as yet, their treatments are based on projections of technology to come rather than present day science: "We firmly believe that with the incredible advances being made in nanotechnology, medicine and science today, cryonics has the same potential to become an everyday reality in the not-so-distant future ... The goal of cryonics is to halt (the 'dying') process as quickly as possible after legal death, giving future doctors the best possible chance of reviving the patient by repairing or replacing damaged tissues, or even entire organs using advanced computer, nanotech and medical equipment and procedures".