Bill Maris, head of Google's investment arm, says humans
will live to be 500-years-old in the future, while today's cancer treatments
will soon seem "primitive" as scientists continue to hunt for cure
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Mr Maris said scientists had made
huge advances in medicine over the past two decades.
Humans
will live to be 500-years-old, according to a top Google executive, who said
the company was investing millions of dollars in life sciences to ensure this
vision became a reality.
Bill
Maris, a venture capitalist and the managing partner of Google Ventures, the
internet giant's investment fund, said it had hired scientists as partners in
order to identify start-ups that could cure cancer and make chemotherapy
"seem primitive" within 20 years.
If
you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes,” he told Bloomberg in an interview.
“We
actually have the tools in the life sciences to achieve anything that you have
the audacity to envision,” he said. “I just hope to live long enough not to
die.”
Mr
Maris said scientists had made huge advances in medicine over the past two
decades.
“Twenty
years ago, without genomics, you could only treat cancer with a poison,” said
Mr Maris. “That’s really different from, ‘We can cure your cancer by
reverse-engineering a stem cell.’ You can now legitimately invest in a company
that could cure cancer.”
Google
Ventures has close to $2bn in assets under management, and has ramped-up its
investment in life science over the past two years.
Google's
investment arm, which employs 70 people, has increased its assets invested in
life sciences from 6pc in 2013 to 36pc today, according to Bloomberg.
