Altos Labs is a biological reprogramming technology company that is attracting large investors like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner.
Silicon Valley's race for immortality has long since started. I spoke to you long ago of the efforts of many Big Tech companies to invest in research on prolonging human life and health. And it seems that this Altos Labs is a pretty big bet. The company is currently luring some of the world's top scientists with big salaries, promising to give them free rein on their anti-aging research.
Some of these are unorthodox visionaries, others even contested, like Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, eg. He is the biologist of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California which caused a sensation in 2017 when the research began on the creation of a human / swine chimera. To reach the Altos Labs, however, there is also Shinya Yamanaka, Nobel Prize winner for his research on reversing aging in cells. He will be the chair of Altos' scientific advisory board.
Immortality for billionaires
Biological reprogramming is a method of rejuvenating cells that could be the key to immortality. There are many reprogramming startups in the world, but none of them have the support that Altos Labs boasts now. Why them?
The economic aspect, however, helps but does not solve. As the saying goes, "No amount of money ever bought a second of time." There is obviously added value in terms of research, even if at the moment Altos Labs is being a bit mysterious on the topic.
What will they do in there?
“The goal is to understand rejuvenation,” he says Manuel Serrano, researcher previously at the Biomedical Research Institute in Spain. Like some of his peers, Serrano was attracted to Altos Labs after they offered to pay him five to ten times what he currently earns.
Do they already have a solution of some kind? Do they plan big profits in the short term? “I would say the idea of having revenue in the future is there,” Serrano says, “but it's not the immediate goal.” So why these massive investments? Gombloddo?
The reason Altos Labs are funded seems simple: people don't want to die (including billionaires). Whether they get there, and how they'll get there. These are the real question marks at the moment.
