The Hanso Life-Extension Project

Despite the Hanso Foundation site being offline, here is my first post in the series about the seven Hanso Foundation Projects.

What is life-extension?

Life-extension refers to increasing the maximum or average lifespan of a living being. Death is something we all have to face sooner or later, but what if death could be delayed?

Today, the only widely recognized method for life-extension is calorie restriction with adequate nutrition. This method of limiting the amount of calories the test subject eats has increased the maximum lifespan of rodents with up to 50%. Experiments are also under way with primates, to find out if calorie restriction has the same impact on long-lived species.

Joop

As it appears, the fictitious researches at The Hanso Foundation are already well under way with life-extension experiments involving primates.

If you dig around on the Hanso Foundation site, a number of letters can be found. One of these letters is a press release from The Hanso Foundation dated September 21st 2005. The press release tells us of the 105th birthday of experimental subject 626 – an orangutan called “Joop”.

In a telex issued earlier today from The Hanso Foundation’s experimental station in Zanzibar, Hanso Foundation Chief Communications Officer Einar Ragnarsson commented that:

“Considering that the average lifespan of chimps in captivity is 60 years, this milestone is clear proof that the suite of transgenic technologies that comprise The Hanso Foundation’s Life-Extension Project will someday help human beings achieve useful lifespans well beyond current norm.”

The press release tells us that The Hanso Foundation are involved in advanced experiments with life-extension technology, but how and why are they doing it? The press release mentions that the life-extension project is comprised of “transgenic technologies”. That doesn’t sound like just calorie restriction…

Transgenic Technologies

Transgenic Technology is a fancy word for genetic modification of organisms. In other words, modifying the subject’s DNA to get the desired result. The modification can for example be done by combining DNA from two sources. In 1990, a human gene was built into the genetic code of a bull embryo. This later resulted in that milk from his female descendants contained the human protein lactoferrine.

Hanso Foundation researchers where not the first to come up with the idea of life-extension, nor where the real life scientist. The desire to break the rules of existence tracks back at least to the Sumerian king Gilgamesh. The next part of this entry is entirely devoted to him.

More information on Life-extension and Transgenic Technology can be found at Wikipedia.