From a few weeks back, an audio interview with Aubrey de Grey of the SENS Research Foundation:

Anti-aging scientist and biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey told [the host] about his work with the SENS Foundation, an organization he founded with the purpose of defeating aging. According to him, aging is treated as a disease that should be defeated by targeting the 7 cellular activities that cause us to age. Dr. de Grey discussed the science that researchers at SENS are studying to back up the claim that we could live to 1000 years some day soon. "The problem is the funding," de Grey said. "We've been trying to fight what we've described as the pro-aging trance." The pro-aging trance, according to Dr. de Grey, is the social conception we have that death is inevitable. "No one wants to keep cancer, no one wants to keep heart disease, so what would we want to keep aging?" de Grey asks. Part of Aubrey de Grey's work is marketing his ideas and helping to diminish the acceptance society has of death. Citing his long beard which [the interviewer] said looked "like Rasputin's," de Grey said, "This is something my team and I have discussed. It's something that helps me stick in people's minds."

[The interviewers] briefly talked about the social, economic, and cultural consequences of a longer life extension. When [the interviewers] pressed de Grey on these issues, Aubrey reiterated that his work is not a "longevity issue, but a health care issue, so stop thinking of it that way please." Aubrey pressed that the key for his scientific success lies in his publicity: getting more exposure and raising money through his foundation.

Link: http://glucksolutions.podomatic.com/entry/index/2013-01-18T12_39_16-08_00

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2013/02/a-podcast-interview-with-aubrey-de-grey.php