Aubrey de Grey

De Grey received a BA in computer science from the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry in 1985 and a PhD in biology from Cambridge in 2000.⁠[1]

On December 9, 2000, he received his PhD in person, as a member of Trinity Hall, at a congregation of the University of Cambridge’s Regent House.⁠[2]

De Grey published The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging in 1999 and Ending Aging in 2007. He created the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), a set of approaches to rejuvenate the body and prevent age-related ill health and death, and co-founded the Methuselah Foundation, SENS Research Foundation and LEV Foundation to develop and clinically translate SENS.⁠[1]

De Grey co-founded SENS Research Foundation, created in 2009, and served as its chief science officer.⁠[3][4]

The a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry podcast episode “a16z Podcast | Defeating Aging with Aubrey de Grey” was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019. Its description says that while some would say de Grey is out to cure death, this former artificial intelligence specialist turned gerontologist is really focused on health, and “the side effect of health is living a lot longer”; the episode covers aging and health and how his computer science background sets his approach apart from that of traditional biologists, at the intersection of software and biology.⁠[5]

From June 2021 de Grey was on administrative leave while an independent investigation examined sexual harassment allegations against him. In August 2021, with the inquiry still under way, the SENS Research Foundation board announced it would “separate from Dr. de Grey, effective immediately,” saying it could not allow him to “undercut or disrupt the investigator’s work”; a spokesperson confirmed he was no longer an employee.⁠[4]

In 2022 de Grey announced the LEV Foundation at Longevity Summit Dublin and became its president and chief science officer; the foundation launched the Robust Mouse Rejuvenation program, whose first study uses 1,000 mice to test combinations of rapamycin, a senolytic, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and telomerase expression, at a cost of about $3 million per round.⁠[3][1]

That year the SENS Research Foundation board said that, although it had agreed that de Grey would rejoin as a consultant with a pathway to reintegration, he would no longer consult for the foundation, effective immediately, owing to his “unwillingness to comply with even the most basic conditions of the agreements he signed.” The board said the decision was separate from the 2021 investigation, which it said had found “poor judgment and boundary-crossing behaviors,” while stating that “Dr. de Grey is not a sexual predator.”⁠[6]

In an interview published in January 2023, asked how the LEV Foundation differs from SENS Research Foundation, he said: “I’m actually in control.”⁠[3]

De Grey is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association and sits on the advisory boards of numerous scientific journals and research organizations.⁠[1]

LEV Foundation: Official website: https://www.levf.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]