Here at the Methuselah Foundation all of our thoughts and energies are focused on one thing, bringing the day of effective anti-aging medicine forward faster so that the suffering and economic burden of age-related disease becomes a historic point of discussion instead of a ongoing brutal reality.
To that end we are always looking for ways to raise awareness of the near-term potential for the development of promsing intervention-oriented aging therapies and one of the opportunities we are helping to organize and support is the Edmonton Aging Symposium.
The Symposium is a unique blend of economics, ethics and the social and biomedical sciences dealing with aging. It is the first serious attempt to bring together individuals from normally disparate communities under one roof to hear the same message of the potential of these new technologies to repair the damage of age-related dysfunction.
The choice of location of the University of Alberta, in Edmonton Alberta Canada, is a logical one. Not only is the University of Alberta a recognized high-quality research center, but resource-rich Alberta is in a unique position in the world. With a surplus of over 8 billion dollars sitting in government coffers due to unexpected increases in oil revenue, the Symposium is meant to provide food for thought as to new directions for diversification, trading dependence on a non-renewable resource to one which has the potential to produce for a globally aging population the most non-renewable resource, time.
The Symposium program includes such speakers as Aubrey de Grey, Judith Campisi, Michael West, Ellen Heber-Katz, Ronald Bailey and a host of others presenting on the state of knowledge of what you can do now to stay healthy while presenting evidence of the future technologies that will be able to take us beyond mere lifestyle choices.
There will be some excellent poster sessions as well as the opportunitiy to discuss the science and bioethics involving effective anti-aging medicine. On the last evening, a send-off dinner and dance with a live rhythm and blues band at the Saturday Night Shake-Up will end everything with a most memorable bang. There will be something for everyone at this groundbreaking gathering.
I hope you have a moment to visit the website at http://www.edmontonagingsymposium.com. Please have a look at the line-up and pricing and perhaps we might see you here in Edmonton, March 30-31 of 2007, to be a part of this exciting event.
Even if you can’t attend, please encourage those who might have a poster they would like to display to do so as there are substantial awards for the best research. Additionally, student travel subsidies of $500 Cdn are also available for those youngsters (or oldsters) who are just at the beginning of their academic journey.
