Living to 150 or so...

[kandrathe]

I remember hearing a doctor not too long ago state that with the increase in nanotech in medicine, he believed that by 2050 at the latest, we would effectively be able to stop the aging process and actually reverse it. He stated that by 2030, he thought that we could definitely stop the aging process. How true he is I don't know, but it is an interesting paradigm with the use of nanomachines fixing people at the cellular and molecular levels.

Mostly, in a way, we already have all the little repair robots in our systems. I could see a role for other nanomechanical systems helping out, though. In a way, as crude as they are now, drug pumps dramatically change peoples lives already, just by releasing a consistent micro dose of a particular medicine can be so much better than the peaks and valleys (over/under dose) of pills or injections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair

There appear to be endocrine systems that shut down with age, and a part of that is a decrease in the mechanisms of cellular repair. If we can figure out how to trick our endocrine system into running at the same rate, regardless of age, then that is one step to longevity.

Telomere shortening becomes a problem with skin, digestive system lining, and other fast growing/dying cells. They divide quickly, and so the telomerase enzyme is an important discovery in figuring out how to keep these cells "forever young".

The trick here is to find enough of these types of natural repair systems, and keep them in good working order.