I don't think you can modify an existing human being through genetic engineering to attain immortality in the way you want.
At best, you would have to genetically engineer a creature from scratch to get that; you can't modify an existing template of humanity (Homo sapiens) without modifying it so much that it might as well be a different species.
You certainly can! Absolutely nothing in physics prevents an existing human from achieving an indefinite healthy lifespan. FDA-approved
gene therapies currently in use include:
- Axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) for adults who have certain types of large B-cell lymphoma that don't respond to treatment.
- Onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi (Zolgensma) can be used to treat children under age two who have spinal muscular atrophy.
- Talimogene laherparepvec (Imlygic) is used to treat certain types of tumors in people with melanomas that recur after surgery.
- Tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) for people up to 25 years old who have follicular lymphoma that has recurred or isn't responding to treatment.
- Voretigene neparvovec-rzyl (Luxturna) for people one year old and older who have a rare inherited type of vision loss that can lead to blindness.
- Exagamglogene autotemcel (Casgevy) for treating people twelve years and older with sickle cell disease or beta thalassemia who meet certain criteria.
- Delandistrogene moxeparvovec-rokl (Elevidys) for children ages four through five years who have Duchenne muscular dystrophy and a flawed DMD gene.
- Lovotibeglogene autotemcel (Lyfgenia) for people twelve years and older with sickle cell disease who meet certain criteria.
- Valoctocogene roxaparvovec-rvox (Roctavian) for adults with severe hemophilia A who meet certain criteria.
- Beremagene geperpavec-svdt (Vyjuvek) for treating wounds in people six months and older who have dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a rare inherited condition that causes fragile, blistering skin.
- Betibeglogene autotemcel (Zynteglo) for people with beta thalassemia who need regular transfusions of red blood cells.
Future gene therapies will reverse aging.
Over two decades ago, the biomedical gerontologist (and registered biostasist) Aubrey de Grey proposed the development of strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS) and defined
seven categories of aging: chromosomal and mitochondrial mutations, lysosomal and extracellular aggregates, extracellular protein crosslinking, cancer, and cellular senescence.
A couple years ago, Carlos López-Otín, Maria A. Blasco, Linda Partridge, Manuel Serrano, and Guido Kroemer proposed
a dozen categories: genomic instability, telomeric attrition, epigenetic alterations, dysproteostasis, disabled macroautophagy, deregulated nutrient sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, altered intercellular communication, chronic inflammation, and dysbiosis.
All of the causes of aging (however precisely many there are) are certainly physically possible to understand and fix faster than they occur, enabling indefinite healthy lifespans. These modifications could be made without changing people in other ways (but I want to change in other ways). Though this may cost trillions and may not happen for centuries, nothing in the laws of physics precludes it from happening eventually.
Functional immortality could also be much more easily achieved through therapeutic cloning and tissue replacement culminating in somatoreplacement (whole body replacement), which some researchers—chiefly including neuroscientist
Jean Hébert of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and
ARPA-H—think could be achieved for only a few billion dollars of research and development. In this way, aging could be completely bypassed without actually understanding it at all.
The most advanced form of biological life extension would apply molecular nanotechnology to continuously monitor and repair the body's systems.
Cyborgization and eventually completely postbiological substrates are other options. Realistically, starfaring beings who survive for eons
won't be biological.
I'm with you on visiting the distant future and seeing other planets and galaxies.
But having a lifespan that is immortal or "Q-like" where you can live until the end of the Universe?
That might be boring unless you have people that you really care about and love to share it with.
Again, the goal is to be able to
choose how long you live, and, yes, I highly recommend having people that you really care about and love. Being alone as the last immortal is a tired trope and ridiculously unlikely. Why would only one person become immortal or survive until the end?
Transhumanists seem not to understand that individuals might want to make other choices. I'm screaming while I still have a mouth to do so.
Oh, we understand. We just don't believe people when they say they accept disease, disability, and death while usually taking full advantage of the most advanced healthcare they can get. Even amongst the most demented death cultists—the clergy and their secular equivalent,
bioethicists—the latest, most advanced healthcare suddenly becomes a top personal priority after a serious diagnosis. The most aggressively antihuman ideologues such as
John Hagee and
Leon Kass are repeatedly found to pursue the best that medical technology can offer for their ailing selves and loved ones; "God" or Marcus Aurelius isn't enough when you or your
daughter or
wife have cancer. If you suddenly found yourself in a youthful, healthy state again, I simply don't believe you'd want to revert to being old and sickly again. "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" is an excellent story, but it is just a story; being converted into a giant amoeba is a ludicrously unlikely scenario.
Anesthesia and organ transplantation were once derided and feared as "unnatural," but those complaints evaporated at warp speed once they went from hypothetical to actual and the undeniable benefits were immediately realized. There has never been a mass rejection of any medical advancement, and I do not think there ever will be one. As they always have, social and religious conventions will continue to yield to scientific progress.
Almost no one
really wants brain fog, memory loss, dementia, cancer, immunodeficiency, hormonal deficiency, heart disease, atherosclerosis, sarcopenia, osteoporosis, arthritis, incontinence, failing senses, liver spots, thinning hair and skin, fatigue, sexual dysfunction, nor any of the other insults of aging. There is nothing "beautiful" nor "noble" nor "necessary" about any of this, just as there as nothing positive about pneumonia, bronchitis, syphilis, typhus, muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, necrotizing fasciitis, nor Ebola. Telling people that they just need to accept aging is actually no different from telling people that they just need to accept cancer.
When people can feel and look twenty again, with very few exceptions, they will. Even those who gave the most impassioned speeches in favor of "the circle of life" and against "transhumanist arrogance" will see others simply looking and feeler better than they have in decades without "losing their humanity" and will rather quickly join them. Biostasis provides people today with at least an infinitesimal chance of seeing that future.
