Exploring the Limits of Aging: Blessing or Global Challenge?
For biomedical research, aging has long ceased to be a mysterious "decay" or "degeneration" to become a problem of metabolic reactions, of small alterations in our DNA that are not corrected, of hormones and other signals that travel through the blood, cells that proliferate more or less than they should, or more or less powerful immune reactions. Aging has no more mystery, or it has the same mystery as any other biological process.
In this context, increasing longevity and healthy ageing pose new individual and collective challenges: How can the welfare state be kept viable by increasing the proportion of non-working people? How can you enjoy a long and healthy life without further degrading the environment? What will we do with so much time? How can affective relationships be maintained "for life" when life is so long? How will we face euthanasia, the cure, the desire for a good death? We will try to answer these questions from a scientific, social and literary perspective.
