In search of immortality - with Venki Ramakrishnan

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Join Nobel Laureate, Venki Ramakrishnan, to question whether mortality is an inevitable part of human existence.

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This lecture was filmed on 9 April 2024 in association with Digital Science.

Buy Venki's book 'Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality' here:

The inevitability of death has haunted humanity throughout its history. Belief systems have risen throughout human civilisation to rationalise and console the concept of death, from the afterlife envisioned in Abrahamic religions to recurrent reincarnation in Eastern religions.

However, there is a growing sense of optimism in our contemporary era. Thanks to a stark revolution in biology, our understanding of the ageing process is progressing rapidly. This includes comprehending why some species have such a great lifespan compared to others and poses the question of whether we as a species could overcome the clutches of disease and live for more extraordinary lengths than ever thought possible.

Join Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, as he navigates this leading-edge research and questions whether mortality is an inevitable part of human existence or if advancements could ever come close to immortality. However, the lengths it has taken to develop this understanding begs the question that death may serve an indispensable purpose and what ethical and societal dilemmas could arise if we try to defer it.

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Venki Ramakrishnan received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the structure and function of the ribosome. He leads a research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. `He served as president of the Royal Society from 2015 to 2020, and was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2022. His previous book, the scientific memoir Gene Machine, was published in 2018 to critical acclaim.

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