Genetics Startup Wants To Prolong Life, 'Make 100 Years Old The Next 60'

J. Craig Venter, the scientist and entrepreneur involved in the first sequencing of the human genome and the first synthetic cell, today announced a typically ambitious project: tack another few decades onto everyone's lives through the largest human genome-sequencing project ever conceived. (Y'know, relatively typical.)

Venter is launching a new company, Human Longevity, through $70 million of venture funding, with the goal of sequencing 40,000 human genomes yearly. Eventually, a bank of biodata will be amassed that could provide insight into age-related illnesses--and maybe even the process of aging itself. The company wants to use new, $10-million machines to drive the cost of a sequence down to about $1,000, and everyone--healthy, sick, young, old--will have their genomes added to the bank.

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A Genetic Entrepreneur Sets His Sights on Aging and Death

J. Craig Venter is the latest wealthy entrepreneur to think he can cheat aging and death. And he hopes to do so by resorting to his first love: sequencing genomes.

On Tuesday, Dr. Venter announced that he was starting a new company, Human Longevity, which will focus on figuring out how people can live longer and healthier lives.

To do that, the company will build what Dr. Venter says will be the largest human DNA sequencing operation in the world, capable of processing 40,000 human genomes a year.

The huge amount of DNA data will be combined with huge amounts of other data on the health and body composition of the people whose DNA is sequenced, in the hope of gleaning insights into the molecular causes of aging and age-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

Slowing aging, if it can be done, could be a way to prevent many diseases, an alternative to treating one disease a time.

“Your age is your No. 1 risk factor for almost every disease, but it’s not a disease itself,” Dr. Venter said in an interview. Still, his company will also work on treating individual diseases of aging.

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