The Science Of Ageing with Professor Dame Linda Partridge

Science & Cocktails is proud to present an episode with legendary geneticist, Professor Dame Linda Partridge.
Can we live forever? Why do the cells in our body tend to degrade and die? Why do the processes that make our human body function become worse over time? Why are certain specific diseases like Alzheimer and Parkinson tend to appear with increasing age? Can we change biology as to stop cells from ageing? What things can we do increase the duration of our lives?
We are living a lot longer than our ancestors did and so we are more and more seeing the ills of old age but what if getting old did not mean getting frail and ill? Recent research has yielded a much better understanding of how ageing happens, and how it leads to the ills of old age. Ageing is not inevitable, and it can be changed by lifestyle and drugs. In laboratory animals it turns out to be possible to target ageing with diet and with existing drugs to promote better health in late life. Tackling the processes involved in ageing itself can also combat the diseases that come with ageing.
The molecular network in our cells that senses food and stress is a promising target to combat ageing, and has already had success in clinical trials. On the more distant horizon, other interventions are appearing too. Linda Partridge will take us on a tour through the science of ageing and express the existent interest in seeing if we can tackle human ageing to prevent or delay the unhealthy period at the end of life.
Professor Dame Linda Partridge is a British geneticist, who studies the biology and genetics of ageing and age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Partridge is currently Weldon Professor of Biometry at the Institute of Healthy Ageing, Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, and Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany. Partridge has received multiple awards for her work. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2003. She was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004, and awarded the Linnean Society of London's prestigious Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2008. In 2009, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), and received the Croonian Lectureship from the Royal Society. She received the Mott Prize Lecture in 2014 and the Mendel Medal in 2021.
For more cool science visit:
• Website: www.scienceandcocktails.org
• Facebook: / scienceandcocktailscph
• UA-cam: / sciencecocktails
• Instagram: / scienceandcocktailsglobal

[@___Anakin.Skywalker]

I thought this wasn't serious because of the cursing LOL but I love the guest speaker and her subject.

[@ScienceCocktails]

Did you enjoy the introduction? :)

[@aprylvanryn5898]

Everyone is so fixated on stopping aging, but nobody is asking if we should. What happens if people start living for 500 years? One of 2 things: 1. The population explodes until it becomes unsustainable. 2. People stop breeding.
Either way, the end result is extinction. I'm all for helping the young live to adulthood, and I'm good with helping people live a healthy life until their death. I'm not for helping people forget that death is as much a part of life as birth. Everyone says AI will be the death of us, but this has the potential to be far more dangerous. Not dying is problematic to say the least. Even if we develop intergalactic space travel, eventually, all the planets in all the systems in all the universe will, eventually, be filled by humans until every available resource is consumed.

[@ScienceCocktails]

Professor Partridge is actually not fixated on stopping ageing. She underlines that her work is to try and make the last years of human life healthier. She also addressed the population question. Quite interesting there, btw!

[@bobthekobb]

Been dead 13 times, its much better to end up where I've been. Living forever would be the equivalent to living in hell eventually. Imagine one of those sleeps where you cant remember the dream but dont wake up. Its very peaceful.

[@ScienceCocktails]

13 times?