100 is the new 60: company aims to help increase healthy human lifespan

"The goal is to promote healthy aging": Dr J. Craig Venter. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

J. Craig Venter, the man who raced the US government to sequence the first human genome, has a new goal: help everyone live to 100, in good health.

"Our goal is to make 100-years-old the new 60," said Peter Diamandis, who co-founded with Venter a company that aims to scan the DNA of as many as 100,000 people a year to create a massive database that will lead to new tests and therapies to help extend healthy human life spans.

Human Longevity will use machines from Illumina, which has a stake in the company, to decode the DNA of people from children to centenarians. San Diego-based Human Longevity will compile the information into a database that will include information on both the genome and the microbiome, the microbes that live in our gut. The aim is to help researchers understand and address diseases associated with age-related decline.

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The company, with $US70 million ($78.3 million) in initial funding, will focus first on cancer, according to a statement.

"We are setting up the world's largest human genome sequencing facility," said Venter, who led a private team that sequenced one of the first two human genomes more than a decade ago. "The goal is to promote healthy aging using advanced genomics and stem cell therapy."

Venter started the closely held company with Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation chairman, and stem cell researcher Robert Hariri. Hariri is founder and chief scientific officer of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, a unit of Celgene, which is working on stem cell treatments.

Improved machines

The speed and accuracy of DNA-scanning machines increased to the point that for the first time makes massive clinically oriented sequencing efforts possible, Venter said.

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100 is the new 60: company aims to help increase healthy human lifespan