IMMORTALITY
OR DEATH
From basic research to a post-aging future
A book by Alexander Panchin
in collaboration with Open Longevity
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About the author

Alexander Panchin
Biologist, science communicator, author
Alexander is a biologist, writer, and a distinguished science communicator renowned for his contributions to popularizing science. He holds a PhD in computational biology and is a graduate of the Department of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics at Moscow State University.

Panchin gained widespread recognition in Russia through his engaging popular science books and articles. His debut book, The Sum of Biotechnology, received the prestigious Enlightener Award from the Dmitry Zimin Foundation in 2016, celebrating it as the year's best popular science book in natural sciences. His second non-fiction work, Defense Against the Dark Arts, became a bestseller.

In addition to non-fiction, Panchin has made notable contributions to literature. His fiction novel Apophenia earned him the Aleksandr Belyaev Literary Award in 2019. Expanding his reach, he runs a successful and ever growing YouTube channel dedicated to science, with over 330,000 subscribers and more than 54 million total views.
About the book
For millennia, humanity has sought the secret to defying death. Only in recent decades, however, have we begun to unravel the complexities of aging, and conceived plausible technology paths to solving it.

Immortality or Death is a celebration of the remarkable strides made in aging research. This book offers a profound, comprehensive, and meticulously detailed exploration of our current understanding of aging, alongside the most advanced efforts to slow it down. With a critical eye, it debunks the allure of modern biohacking—the “false grail”—and shines a spotlight on the most promising scientific directions. Drawing on the systematization of over a thousand studies and research articles, Immortality or Death provides a balanced perspective, including healthy skepticism of pseudoscientific claims and optimism inspired by real scientific progress.

Beyond its scientific depth, Immortality or Death is an ode to human life itself, challenging the outdated notion that the pursuit of immortality or agelessness is the domain of mad tyrants or unethical scientists. The book champions this quest as a noble and deeply human endeavor, rooted in compassion and curiosity. Finally, it outlines both a scientific roadmap and social strategies to accelerate progress in humanity's ongoing battle against the injustice of death, encouraging readers to imagine a future where aging is no longer inevitable.
Table of contents
  • Introduction
    Why aging is not an impossible puzzle and why we should solve it.
  • Chapter 1. My enemies are nature, entropy, and death
    Life, Death, and Entropy. The basic understanding of aging.
  • Chapter 2. Imagine there's no heaven
    What if death is not the end? The theistic and atheistic visions of an afterlife.
  • Chapter 3. The false Grail
    Supplements. Vitamins. Diets. Biohacking. Does anything work?
  • Chapter 4. Evolution is not your friend
    Why some organisms live much longer than others.
  • Chapter 5. Death after sex
    The disposable soma and whether aging a program that can be simply turned off.
  • Chapter 6. Feast of famine
    The rate of living theory. Calorie restriction. Nutrient sensing. Autophagy.
  • Chapter 7. The immortal cell
    Epigenetic reprogramming. Telomere attrition. Embryonic rejuvenation and cloning.
  • Chapter 8. Programmed cell aging
    Cellular senescence. Inflammation. Senolytic drugs.
  • Chapter 9. The rise and fall of living utopias
    The battle within us: cancer evolution against the aging immune system.
  • Chapter 10. Fragile, but not that fragile
    Aging of the extracellular matrix and the long-lived components of our bodies.
  • Chapter 11. The ageless brain
    Body transplantation. Parabiosis. Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Chapter 12. The twenty-first–century cure
    3D bioprinters. Blastocyst complementation and growing new organs.
  • Chapter 13. Whatever it takes
    The hallmarks of aging. Combination therapy of aging. The ultimate anti-aging experiment.
  • Chapter 14. Cancel death culture
    A review of modern anti-aging projects and movements. What should we do?
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