Russian oligarch - about anti-aging and how to live up to 120 years

Businessman Dmitry Kaminsky. Photo collage: forumdaily.com

The theme of eternal life pursues humanity, perhaps as much as it inhabits the planet. The rulers dreamed about it, poets wrote, alchemists fought for centuries, and all sorts of scoundrels pulled money from gullible citizens.

It would seem that so far little has changed dramatically, and people continue to die for quite natural reasons, not living to a hundred years. However, this will change very soon, and humanity is now on the verge of enormous changes, says Dmitry Kaminsky39 is a Russian-born millionaire from Moldova.

For the past couple of years, he has been investing money in Hong Kong Venture Fund Deep Knowledge Ventures and is constantly participating in scientific conferences and medical symposia. In an interview with the “Forum,” Dmitry told how technology is going to live for at least up to 123 years, in which of them it is necessary to invest, to whom such longevity will be available, and in what books one can learn intimate knowledge if there is nothing to invest.

How did you come to invest in anti-aging technology?

I got acquainted with several really brilliant people, such as Alex Zhavoronkov, Charles Kantor (director of the project “Human Genome”), read their books and suddenly realized that the life extension and deceleration technologies that are actually working in practice will be achieved in the coming years.

This will completely change the world around us, including the financial one, and it is in this area that there will be the most significant investment boom in the entire existence of mankind.

Want to say, “anti-aging” will affect the economy and finances?

Those who are now 60 years old will live to 120, and those who are now 40 are likely to be able to live to 140-150 years. But in my understanding, not only the life expectancy is more meaningful, but the maximum duration of the active and useful for the society phase of life. The development of the anti-aging industry (scientifically based and yielding real practical results) will totally affect the entire world order, and with consequences that will be difficult to predict.

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Thanks to the improvement in living conditions, the development of medicine and the increase in the general level of education, life expectancy has increased. Now in most economically developed countries, it is at least 70 years, and, on average, increased by 20 years over the past century.

Why do we get old

Lifespan directly related to the topic of aging, as the degradation of all body systems. Logic dictates that if old age is defeated, then a long, and, perhaps, eternal life will come by itself. It was on this path that scientists and enthusiastic investors supported them.

About a hundred years ago science appeared gerontology and understanding what exactly happens to a person during aging and with what will have to fight. The concept of “anti-aging” or “anti-aging” has appeared, although official medicine prefers the boring word “geroprophylaxis”.

Gerontology points out three main reasons aging of the body: wear, loss of ability to self-renew and restore, the inclusion of self-destruction processes in the second half of life.

Wearing occurs due to the accumulation of damage (mutations) in the genes and poor ecology - radiation, lack of oxygen, stress, the accumulation of harmful substances, overwork. The body stops recovering due to the evolutionary code in the DNA molecule - gave offspring, ceased to be necessary to nature. And then the third level turns on, and the cells actually commit suicide. Nature considered that it would be more appropriate: the whole species is immortal, and not a separate organism. The most obvious example is leaf fall, when leaves die every year, but not the tree itself.

However, in nature there are many examples of real immortality - some bacteria, cancer cells, hydra (actinium), and even rare species of jellyfish.

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How does “anti-aging” medicine differ from standard or exclusive medicine, such as “Kremlin medicine”?

The future of anti-aging is personalized medicine (PM) or “precision medicine”. But this is far from synonymous with the so-called elitist, very expensive medicine. It is typical for PM to prevent diseases with scientifically proven methods, to slow down aging, and if the disease does occur, treat it with the method that is most effective for each particular patient. The genetic characteristics of the patient, the features of the functioning of his body (gene expression) are taken into account. And then, taking into account these data, the drugs and treatment strategy are selected. In this method of treatment does not apply the statistics of a huge number of other patients, as they are useless. The PM industry is estimated at tens of billions of dollars in the world.

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According to research confirmed by WHO (World Health Organization), human health and longevity by more than 50% determined by his lifestyle, and then the influence of heredity and ecology follows, and only on 10% does it depend on health care.

История вопроса

In the USA, Germany, France and the Soviet Union, since the twenties of the last century, they began to look for ways to prolong human life. In Paris and Moscow, for example, people transplanted endocrine glands of donor monkeys. The number of operations, called "vaccinations", went to hundreds. But the effect of “vaccinations” was short-lived, and after a few years the human body abruptly died. Yes, and the society was clearly not ready for such experiments - threats fell down, starting from the church and ending with the “Ku Klux Klan”.

In the modern world, not only governments but also individuals invest in anti-aging. Many businessmen suddenly realized that all the benefits of civilization fade before the opportunity to live, if not forever, then at a very, very long time.

According to company research Global Industry Analists anti-aging industry was estimated at 80 billion dollars even in 2011 year, its growth over the 2013 year was approximately 7,8% annually, and by the 2019 year the expected volume be over 191 billion dollars.

Both major pharmaceutical companies and research centers are playing on the anti-aging market. In the US, working with 1992 Academy of anti-aginguniting thousands of scientists from 120 countries, Stanford University reports success in research, Boston is not far behind Institute of Age Research. In the CIS, work is in full swing Moscow Fund “Science for the extension of life”, St. Petersburg Institute of Gerontology, Institute of Gerontology NAMS of Ukraine, and in Kazakhstan are held international forums “Active longevity”.

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So, as soon as a breakthrough technology emerges, will “anti-aging” become one of the most profitable businesses?

Yes, it's true. Today, the very approach to business and investment is changing. The latest trend in the field of technology investment projects - Deep Knowledge Ventures - Investment in Disruptive Exponential Technologies (or, in Russian, investments in very rapidly developing technologies). The idea is that relatively small amounts are invested, but in really breakthrough projects, and then conditions for a sharp increase are created for them.

For example, Peter Thiel invested just 500 thousand dollars on Facebook, but one of the first. Other famous examples: Uber, Airbnb, AliBaba. The margins (profitability) of such companies surpasses-a thousand percent. They take and summarize a huge amount of information already available, and place it on an “IT based” analytical platform that is not tied to any territory.

And if we were recently surprised by the capitalization of hundreds of billions of dollars in ten to fifteen years, then soon, perhaps, advanced IT platforms will gain a capitalization of one trillion dollars in ten years or even faster.

If we are talking about IT startups - Are there any specifics for people from CIS countries? What are the chances compared to Asians and Americans? What is the recipe for getting one percent successful?

If the “startup” is successful, then it doesn’t matter where it started, anyway, it will quickly become international. Now projects are not divided into nationalities and countries, but into categories — super-progressive and all the rest.

How to get into one percent? Correct to put the question: how to get to one hundredth of a percent? Answer: the project should be “breakthrough and exponential”. In addition, still work on the Internet and be suitable for industries capable of exponential development. Quite clearly and clearly described in the book by Peter Diamandis "Bold".

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At the beginning of this year, Dmitry Kaminsky and scientist Alex Zhavoronkov argued about who of them will live longer. The winner will receive a million dollars in promotions. At the same time, a reward was announced to those who will live to 123 years, that is, they will beat the existing French record Jeanne Kalmanwho lived 122, 164 of the day.

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Honestly. Are you afraid to grow old?

I'm not afraid to grow old, honestly, as I am sure that in ten, and even more so in twenty years, super-advanced technologies will be in action in the fight against aging. Given our investment strategy, I personally will have direct access to them among the first. Therefore, following the one million dollar bonus on 123 birthday, we will launch a more serious and large-scale project.

I am sure that in a maximum of ten years oligarchs and magnates will not compete in ways to spend money and not in the cost of the most senseless spending, such as buying an even longer ocean yacht or a famous football club. Access to the most advanced and effective anti-aging technologies will be in vogue. And the competition will be fought for the right to own investment systems with a more powerful artificial intelligence coefficient.

And what about a mere mortal who does not have millions?

The level of modern medicine has already increased, and life up to one hundred years will be quite common. It is necessary to use advanced biomedical developments and follow the progress and scientific news. The well-known gerontologist Alexey Moskalev, a world specialist in the field of studying geroprotectors (drugs that slow down aging), wrote the book “120 years of life is only the beginning”. In Russia, it has become quite popular, and now we are together going to publish an edition in English. Add a few more chapters about the most advanced biomedical technologies. Anyone who reads this book will be able to live to see the 120 years.

What will the future look like with a “ageless” population in the CIS countries and Israel, for example?

Andrei Garazh, an expert in applied biomedical technologies, senior manager in the company Kaminsky Deep Knowledge Ventures.

Anti-aging will greatly affect the financial world: the longer you live, the more you accumulate, you spend more and, therefore, more money comes from you back to the financial system.

It is possible to say so - the longer a person lives, the more his cost increases (for example, the longer he is served in the bank, which means he makes a profit to the bank, he earns on interest, etc.) Due to the duration of healthy longevity, the share of the working-age population grows, which means that the country's GDP grows as a whole.

There is also a negative side: problems of insurance companies and pension funds. Their financial balance, their business models are destroyed, because they are tied to the current life expectancy.

There are various studies on the effects of life expectancy on the economy. According to some forecasts, a collapse is occurring, in others it is said about the importance of raising the active age, but the ideal option is that people should be active until their death, then the costs of their medical care will be significantly reduced.

Much will change, such as education and work. A person will live longer and, therefore, will be able to receive five types of education and change a large number of professions. They will also have to be changed because professions will quickly become obsolete.

Now there are contradictions at the state level: people of retirement age are trying to replace the young, and the old to retire, retire. In fact, today none of the countries is ready for active longevity.

It will be necessary to change the psychology of people, so that they abandon the idea that you need to live to 55-60 for years, retire and not work.

The CIS will inevitably experience demographic growth and increase in life expectancy, since those technologies that were in the West fifteen years ago began to roll over to us. The mere introduction of biomedical technologies already existing there will significantly prolong life.

Israel is on the list of developed countries with an aging population. They already have high-quality free medical care, they introduce all the new products, they have excellent connections with the most advanced scientific centers in the world. The biotech industry is actively growing, a lot of new companies are emerging, and now they are extremely interested in “anti-aging”. The state wants to bring the retirement age to 67 years. The trend is clear: if you want to live well, work long and hard.

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In literature and cinema

Immortality and longevity are eternal themes that leave no one indifferent, especially creative people who have created many works. Suffice it to recall the folklore with the rejuvenating apples and Kashchei the Immortal, the classics — Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift, Karel Čapek, the Strugatsky brothers — who just didn’t go through this topic. The ancients generally believed that immortality is the lot of the gods, but for mere mortals it is given for some merit, like the same Heracles.

By the way, the gods applied immortality to people as punishment: Prometheus, Sisyphus, Tantalum. About the same can be read in the biblical scenes: Cain, Agasfer.

There is nothing to say about today's Hollywood cinema, films with a similar plot about the search for eternal youth, immortality and the turning of life backwards are dozens: “Highlander”, “Eternally Young”, “The Age of Adaline”, “Brothers Grimm”, “Dorian Gray” and many others.

In other words, the topic does not need “PR,” and as soon as real technology emerges that is guaranteed to extend life for at least a decade, the name of its author will go down in human history forever.