If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger.

A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging -- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.

"I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science.

"And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance," which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape.

De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he won his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009.

He describes aging as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.

"The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic," he explained.

For some, the prospect of living for hundreds of years is not particularly attractive, either, as it conjures up an image of generations of sick, weak old people and societies increasingly less able to cope.

But de Grey says that's not what he's working for. Keeping the killer diseases of old age at bay is the primary focus.

"This is absolutely not a matter of keeping people alive in a bad state of health," he told Reuters. "This is about preventing people from getting sick as a result of old age. The particular therapies that we are working on will only deliver long life as a side effect of delivering better health."

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如果奥布里•德•格雷的预测是正确的话，第一个能够活到150岁的人已经出生了。第一个能活1000年的人可能比能活到150岁的人年轻不到20岁。

据一个致力于长寿研究的基金会的首席科学家、老年生物医学专家德•格雷估算，在他有生之年，医生能够掌握一切 “治疗”衰老所需的方法，能够驱除伴随衰老而来的疾病，并无限期地延长寿命。

德•格雷在英国皇家科学院的一次讲课前接受的访谈中说：“我敢说，我们有50%的几率可以在未来大约25年内对衰老实现决定性的医疗控制。”

“我所指的‘决定性’医疗控制和我们对现在大多数传染性疾病采用的医疗控制是同一性质的。”

德•格雷认为未来有一天人们会去找医生定期做“保养”，让自己保持良好的身体状态，那时保养将包括基因疗法、干细胞疗法、免疫刺激和其他各种先进的医疗技术。

德•格雷现在住在剑桥大学附近，他于2000年在剑桥大学获得博士学位，现在是位于加州的非盈利机构桑斯（微衰老操控策略）基金会的科技总监，他在2009年合伙创建了这一基金会。

他把衰老描述为周身各种分子和细胞的损伤在一生中的累积。

他解释说：“我的想法是在你体内的分子和细胞损伤积累达到致病程度之前就定期去做修复，你们可能将这称为预防性老年医学。”

对某些人而言，能活上几百年的前景并不是特别吸引人，因为它让人想起一代代社会日益无法承载的病弱老人们。

不过德•格雷说，长命百岁不是他的奋斗目标，预防致命老年疾病才是他主要的工作重点。

他告诉路透社说：“这绝对不是要让人们病歪歪地活着，而是要防止人们患上老年疾病。我们所钻研的特殊疗法所带来的长寿人生只是健康状况改善的附带影响。”