Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based in Cambridge, UK and Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to combating the aging process. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the world highest-impact peer-reviewed journal focused on intervention in aging. His research interests encompass the characterization of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage. Aubrey de Grey has developed a possibly comprehensive plan for such repair, termed Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), which breaks aging down into seven major classes of damage and identifies detailed approaches to addressing each one. A key aspect of SENS is that it can potentially extend healthy lifespan without limit, even though these repair processes will probably never be perfect, as the repair only needs to approach perfection rapidly enough to keep the overall level of damage below pathogenic levels. Dr. Aubrey de Grey has termed this required rate of improvement of repair therapies longevity escape velocity. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations. Please enjoy my interview with Aubrey de Grey.

How do you describe your occupation?

I’m a biomedical gerontologist. That means I do research (well, I oversee research) focused on the development of new medicines that can keep people more healthy late in life.

What is something about you that people might find surprising?

That rather depends on what they already know about me! Some people might be surprised that I’m no longer polyamorous (which I was from roughly ages 45 to 53). Some people might be surprised that I don’t take any supplements. Some people may be surprised that I look forward to being less important and less famous than now. Etc.

What are you reading at the moment and what made you want to read it?

I’m afraid that for many years I never get time to read anything except academic papers.

What was your favourite book as a child and why?

Does teenage count as a child? I was a massive fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams . Anyone who has only experienced the movie and/or the TV series knows nothing about it. You have to read the 5-part “trilogy” – and, ideally, listen to the original radio series.

When did you fall in love with reading?

I was an avid reader from very early – age 3 so I’m told.

What was the last book you purchased, and why did you buy it?

Probably the last Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling , because, er, I liked the others. (I’m presuming you exclude books bought as presents for other people.)

What are perfect reading conditions for you?

Conditions that don’t exist in my life – having time!

What book have you found most inspiring, what effect did it have on you?

To be honest, in my life I have been inspired less by books than by songs.

What’s the most obscure book you own; how did you discover it?

I own a very moth-eaten copy of the Encyclopedia of Rock written in about 1978 by some journalists from the New Musical Express newspaper. That was a perfect year for such a book – earlier, and it would have had nothing about punk rock; later, and it could not have been a truly comprehensive account going back to the origins of rock and roll.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the last 6 months?

I honestly haven’t read any!

What is your proudest achievement?

Figuring out, in July 2000, what people had been missing with regard to the potential medical control of aging.

If an alien landed in your garden; which three books would you gift them to showcase humanity in the best possible way?

The The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is pretty good, actually, since it includes a scene where exactly that thing happens (except that it’s actually Lord’s cricket ground, not a garden), and nobody notices because it’s psychologically easier not to let the sight reach one’s thought centres than to cope with the implications.

Other than that I think I would go with other satires – a compilation of issues of The Onion, for example (though I’m not sure they have ever compiled them as a book). I think the main thing that aliens need to know about us upfront is that we do not all take ourselves as seriously as it may seem. 1066 and All That by Walter Carruthers Sellar is another really great example.

Are there any books you haven’t mentioned that you feel would make your reading list?

Oh, thousands. For example, I discovered the Discworld series only when Pratchett had already published maybe ten of them, and after a few pages of the first one I decided that I just needed to not get hooked quite yet but to wait until I had time – and I’m still waiting.

Which book sat on your shelf are you most excited about reading next and why?

Well, actually I have on my shelf the entire back catalogue of the mathematics journal “Geombinatorics” in which I published a nice little result last year. That will be 100x more addictive and time-consuming than even the Discworld series, so I’m saving it until aging is over…

If you’d like to learn more about Aubrey de Grey, you can find him on his faculty page and on Twitter.