Computational Aging

“If I can dream, in a few years we’ll have spatiotemporal single-cell ’omics in living tissues.” – Sten Linnarsson, Karolinska Institute[1]

When we know exactly what is going in every tissue and cell of the live human body, we probably will figure out how to cure aging.

But how much data storage is necessary to track every protein and non-coding RNA in the human body?

Here's a quick estimate:

• 30 trillion cells per human
• 80,000 unique non-coding RNA
• 20,000 unique proteins
• = 5x10^22 measurements per human
• Now, measure this hourly every year (8,760 hrs/yr)
• = 5x10^26 measurements per human per year
• Call it 4 bytes per number (float32)
• = 2x10^27 bytes per human per year
• Convert this into zetabytes at 10^21 bytes per zetabyte
• = 2x10^6 zetabytes per year per human
• Measure this across 10 billion humans
• = 2x10^16 zetabytes for humanity per year

So we need 2 million zetabytes (2x10^6) per human per year and 10 billion times more for every human. Unfortunately, we only captured about 100 zetabytes of data as a species in 2021[2]. This math is probably wrong... but probably at least directionally right.

We don't have the ability to store (or of course yet capture) this amount of data. But single-cell spatial transcriptomic methods will continue to rapidly improve, as will data storage and data science methods. For example, we may get tissue-level live 'omics in the next few decades.

[1] Marx, V. Method of the Year: spatially resolved transcriptomics. Nat Methods 18, 9–14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-020-01033-y

[2] "Volume of data/information created, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide from 2010 to 2025." Statistia.com. Accessed June 24, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/

"I finally adopted what I called 'Great Thoughts Time.' When I went to lunch Friday noon, I would only discuss great thoughts after that. By great thoughts I mean ones like: 'What will be the role of computers in all of AT&T?', 'How will computers change science?'" – Richard Hamming, You and Your Research

Here are some of the big open questions I see in aging science right now:

1. Cause and effect of why we age still unknown? New paradigm may be needed?
2. What can partial reprogramming do?
3. How to stave off neuron loss in the brain?
4. How to slow or reverse damage in DNA, epigenome, proteome and cell homeostasis?
5. What do DNA methylation clocks really reflect?
6. What is the best way to measure in vivo aging?
7. How to test effectiveness of new aging therapies on humans?
8. How to use massive new datasets?
9. How to get more talented people into the space?
10. How much of a role does inflammation have in aging? How much could reduction of excessive inflammation lead to longevity?
11. What are we learning from the iPSC programming startups and experiments?
12. Does young blood work? Why and how?
13. What is Michael Snyder doing?
14. How do longer lived organisms reduce cell mutation rate? Can you replicate this in mice and see life extension? (See Cagan et al, 2022)
15. How to keep zest for life past 100? Avoid reduction in dopamine signaling and increased depression?

Of critical importance is identifying the right questions and focusing very aggressively and directly on them. I expect this list above will change dramatically as I pursue this field. I hope to make fast enough progress such that I'm embarrassed by this list within a few months.

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” - Woody Allen

I don’t want to get old, suffer, and die. I don’t want my loved ones to suffer in this way. Or anyone. Have you experienced a loved one suffer from cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease or another age-related disease? If so, you probably know how terrible this can be.

Today, we can improve our health in many ways, but absent new technology most of us will suffer from age-related disease and die by 100.

I got interested in aging when I learned that lifespan isn't necessarily fixed. It is possible to extend our healthy lifespans. Other complex organisms live for 100s of years, even 1000s of years. Still, aging is an unbelievably difficult and complex problem. We don't even really know why and how it happens.

Could we make major progress on healthy aging in my lifetime? I'm 38, and will likely live at least to 80, if not 90 or more. The median American is also about 38 years old. To give more than half of Americans a shot at living longer (and more than half of the people in the world, given the median person in the world is about 30 years old), we need health-extending and life-extending therapies by 2063, when I would turn 80. The odds are against us, but I'm willing to try, given the potential benefits to humanity. 

So that's my big goal –– for humanity to achieve significant lifespan and healthspan extension by 2063.

Aging is an incredibly complicated problem with much that is still unknown. I'm directing the bulk of my professional energy at this goal. More and more, others are doing the same. I'll use this blog as a place to write about it.