Peter Fedichev's data-based longevity prediction

Who we're talking about: Peter Fedichev, an academic physicist turned biotech entrepreneur. Fedichev has launched three biotech companies, including a longevity startup called Gero.

Because of Fedichev's physics background, the approach behind Gero is different to most other biotechs. Fedichev says his group wants to first understand and then halt aging.

To do this, the Gero folks have crunched tens of millions of medical records, which have come from a recent partnership with pharma giant Pfizer. Based on all this number crunching, Fedichev has come up with predictions — some familiar, some surprising, but all backed by a lot of data.

And the news is: Fedichev recently posted the preprint of a paper in which he explains his theory of aging, gleaned from all this massive data. In spite of being highly technical and still not formally published, his preprint got picked up by Popular Mechanics, The Independent, and USA Today.

The gist of Fedichev’s prediction: Fedichev says that, according to the data, we will never be able to significantly reverse aging, but we can slow it almost to a halt. Depending on how you look at it, that's either depressing or inspiring.

For a broader, more nuanced perspective, this recent interview with Fedichev, in which he gives you both the good and the bad, is worth a read.