Silicon Valley's Quest to Live Forever

After Moby put in a plug for being vegan, Dzau called on Martine Rothblatt, the founder of a biotech firm called United Therapeutics, which intends to grow new organs from people's DNA. “Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional,” Rothblatt said. (She has already commissioned a backup version of her wife, Bina—a “mindclone” robot named Bina48.) Aging has long lacked the kind of vocal constituency that raised awareness of H.I.V. and breast cancer; as a species, we stink at mobilizing against a deferred collective calamity (see: climate change). The old wax fatalistic, and the young don't really believe they'll grow old. But Rothblatt suggested that the evening marked an inflection point. Turning to Dzau, she declared, “It's enormously gratifying to have the epitome of the establishment, the head of the National Academy of Medicine, say, ‘We, too, choose to make death optional!' ” The gathering blazed with the conviction that such events can spark: the belief that those inside the room can determine the fate of all those outside the room.