Calico, Google’s largest R&D project in healthcare, that promises to defy aging
Calico, Google’s latest healthcare project, ever since Google Healthcare tanked, is potentially exciting, seeing how it intends to extend human life.
Even if the project cannot be categorized as a Google company but an extension of its mad science lab, Google X, Larry Page explained that the company wants to take the same approach that it has taken to wearable computing and self-driving cars into the field of healthcare as well.
In particular, Calico wants to solve the problem of cancer and will invest almost $1 billion into the project, which won’t be much, as the company is reaching a market cap of $300 billion at this point.
Page, in an interview, with TIME, believes that most good ideas takes almost 10 to 20 years to reach fruition and which is why it is necessary for companies to focus on things that are really important.
Yet it must be pointed out that even though the company is far from extending our lives by 10 to 20 years, recent research in the areas of telomeres or how the Planarian worm manages to attain immortality can help Google take steps in the right direction.
However, Google, unlike GlaxoSmithKline, does not have funding restraints much like the latter experienced when trying to create a new anti-aging drug, SRT501. Moreover, this is the company that has managed to map out the globe in just a few years so one can expect a real difference made by Google in the coming years.
Of course, with almost 1 billion people not even having access to healthcare, it’s an issue that Google can think about before they move on to extending the lifespan of humans in the years ahead.