A better idea for Elon Musk: inner space | Opinion

I may be wrong but I think Elon Musk might give up on acquiring Twitter, or regret he owns it, for business and social reasons in our bifurcated society.

Instead, he should become an Immortalist like some of our other great Dynamists, like Bill Gates, Paul Allen and the Google family founders, who are pouring billions of dollars into finding the causes of aging, with the purpose of extending our lives for decades or forever.

That sure beats Elon’s most far-reaching goals of setting up colonies on the Moon or vacationing on Mars.

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For years now, an annual check-up at the local Mayo Clinic includes measuring the person’s telomeres, which are attached to the end of many cells. They get shorter with each cell replication and then die, taking us with them. By injecting a person with the enzyme telemorase, the cell is elongated and beats senescence, as does its host, us.

There are doctors who give this care beyond Mayo. But do not get too excited, brain cells do not have telomeres, they just age and die.

There are plenty of other avenues where Musk could invest his futuristic perspective.

Immunotherapy is prolonging life, as when President Jimmy Carter beat brain cancer and is still with us. Even more exciting is gene editing, also known as Crispr, to eventually make everything work in our bodies; it has beaten sickle cell leukemia in a few patients and restored sight in one.

Organ replacement has become common, when you think of certain manufactured body parts, like the left ventricle of the heart. A completely new heart is good in surgery but not long after. The best bet looks like organ transplants from animals, especially from pigs, which just worked in a kidney replacement.

Of course, some futurist thinkers, such as Walt Disney, have reportedly entered cryonic suspension, hoping to be kept in a frozen status until the cure for what killed them is discovered.

So instead of riding your SpaceX to live on the moon, Elon, get on board with living longer and maybe forever. Then you will be part of the Immortalist Movement, which has been around for sixty years.

See for example Robert Ettinger’s The Prospect of Immortality published in1965 and FM Esfandiary’s Optimism One in 1970; my 1990, “Dynamism: The Belief in Forward Movement” (The Entrepreneurship Forum, Stern School of Business/NYU); and, Walter Isaacson’s “How Gene Editing Will Change Your Life,” article and Podcast.

I'd be happy to see him get to work right here in Palm Beach County, where the University of Florida now runs Scripps Biomedical Research operation, with plans to open a campus in Downtown West Palm Beach where the focus also will be medical discoveries.

Rockets are nice, Elon, but there's plenty to see and learn in inner space, as well.

Jeremy Wiesen is a resident of West Palm Beach.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Elon Musk should focus on futuristic health research.