Book Review

The Quest for Human Longevity: Science, Business, and Public Policy

N Engl J Med 2006; 354:2083-2084May 11, 2006

Article

The Quest for Human Longevity: Science, Business, and Public Policy
By Lewis D. Solomon. 197 pp. New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Publishers, 2006. $34.95. ISBN: 0-7658-0300-3

This unusual book was written by a professor of business law at George Washington University Law School. Most other books on human longevity written for a general audience are focused almost exclusively on scientific ideas and breakthroughs in life-extension research, and they typically avoid any discussion of financial profit. According to tradition, scientists are driven largely by curiosity and a noble desire to save humankind from age-related degenerative diseases, rather than by the desire to profit from their research. This somewhat idealistic view is challenged in The Quest for Human Longevity, which describes, in great detail, the importance of money in the entrepreneurial business of life-extension and antiaging research. In the view of the author, Lewis D. Solomon, financial incentives often drive scientific innovations in antiaging studies by stimulating researchers to take risks and work hard.

The Quest for Human Longevity lifts the curtain of secrecy regarding financial matters by providing a detailed history of eight corporations that are pursuing antiaging and life-extension interventions: Geron, Juvenon, Eukarion, BioMarker Pharmaceuticals, Elixir Pharmaceuticals, Helicon Therapeutics, Memory Pharmaceuticals, and Cortex Pharmaceuticals. Particularly interesting are the candid profiles of the scientific founders and top executives of these companies, including Michael West, Bruce Ames, Stephen Spindler, Saul Kent, Cynthia Kenyon, Leonard Guarente, David Sinclair, and Eric Kandel, among others. According to this book, it is not wrong for researchers supported by grants based on taxpayers' money to be involved in for-profit businesses and to benefit financially from their research findings. Solomon cites many examples of such activities conducted by reputable scientists who are involved both in life-extension and antiaging research and in related businesses. Opponents of commercialized science may disagree with Solomon, but they may still find this book interesting and useful, because it offers examples of ventures in which academic scientists form a link between the worlds of research and commerce.

Solomon also examines the issues of intellectual property and financing in relation to each of the eight companies already mentioned, in a discussion that helps the reader to understand how some of these companies manage to survive without introducing any product to the market. Survival is achieved by “marking the territory” — claiming intellectual property through patents and then benefiting from the patents through license agreements and other means. It would be no exaggeration to say that most profits come not from the sale of legitimate antiaging and life-extending drugs, but from the sale of future expectations of these drugs in the form of intellectual property. It is therefore not surprising that many of these companies are struggling to survive — and Solomon describes in detail each company's dramatic struggle.

Solomon also discusses the science behind antiaging research undertaken by these companies, including such topics as telomere shortening with age and the restoration of telomere length with the use of telomerase; oxidative damage caused by free radicals and antioxidant protection; the slowing of aging through caloric restriction or the modulation of gene expression; and the development of memory-enhancing drugs.

The Quest for Human Longevity will be of interest to medical students, scientists involved in biomedical research on aging, policymakers, and biotech investors, as well as to general readers interested in compelling issues of future life extension and debates over commercialized science.

Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
Natalia Gavrilova, Ph.D.
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
gavrilov@longevity-science.org