In Ending Aging, Dr. de Grey and his research assistant Michael Rae describe the details of this biotechnology. They explain that the aging of the human body, just like the aging of man-made machines, results from an accumulation of various types of damage. As with man-made machines, this damage can periodically be repaired, leading to indefinite extension of the machine's fully functional lifetime, just as is routinely done with classic cars. We already know what types of damage accumulate in the human body, and we are moving rapidly toward the comprehensive development of technologies to remove that -damage. By demystifying aging and its postponement for the nonspecialist reader, de Grey and Rae systematically dismantle the fatalist presumption that aging will forever defeat the efforts of medical science.

Review by Adrian Cull

I eventually got round to reading this in 2020-2021. It took a while as I was still learning about cell biology, so span off and read a few other books at the same time. Having said that, with some basic human biology under your belt, it really is a great read. Aubrey has a relaxed writing style, cleverly providing some very detailed information but without making it an academic tome - he even throws in lots of pop-culture references which makes me wonder how if ever had time to relax when he must have read every paper under the sun regarding ageing research!

It's old, and most of the science references has long been superseded, but it provides a great basis for understanding the engineering approach to preventing ageing - i.e. SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence).

Looking forward to the sequel - "Aging Ended" :)