Preston Estep

Preston W. Estep III (also known as Pete Estep) is an American biologist and science and technology advocate. He is a graduate of Cornell University, where he did neuroscience research, and he earned a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University. He did his doctoral research in the laboratory of genomics pioneer Professor George Church at Harvard Medical School.

Neuroscience and Neuroengineering

Dr. Estep is Chairman of The Innerspace Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and funding neuroengineering (high-resolution functional brain imaging, brain-computer interface) approaches for the enhancement of memory and learning. The foundation funds cutting-edge neuroscience and engineering research and it organizes and runs "The IF Prize", prize-based neuroengineering competitions for the development and demonstration of devices for augmenting memory and to facilitate learning. Memory augmentation would allow the two-way transfer of memory information between the brain and a device capable of information encoding/decoding, storage, and backup. In theory, a learning device would allow a person thought-driven access to information without having to "learn" it in a traditional manner. A founding philosophy of The Innerspace Foundation is that the shortest and most efficient path to solving humanity's most serious problems--including providing complete and lasting cures for the most diseased and disabled--is through widespread and dramatic improvement of memory, mind, and learning rather than through the best efforts of people who are well-meaning but of naturally limited abilities.

Genomics and Nutrition

Dr. Estep is an inventor of several technologies including DNA chip-based readout of transposon-based selections [Badarinarayana V, Estep PW 3rd, Shendure J, Edwards J, Tavazoie S, Lam F, Church GM. Selection analyses of insertional mutants using subgenic-resolution arrays. "Nat Biotechnol." 2001 Nov;19(11):1060-5.] and universal DNA protein-binding microarrays (PBMs). [Berger MF, Philippakis AA, Qureshi AM, He FS, Estep PW 3rd, Bulyk ML. Compact, universal DNA microarrays to comprehensively determine transcription-factor binding site specificities. "Nat Biotechnol." 2006 Nov;24(11):1429-35. Epub 2006 Sep 24.] . He is an advisor on matters of nutrition and aging to the Personal Genome Project, the first "open-source" genome project spearheaded by Professor Church and based at Harvard Medical School.

In the December 2007 "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" Estep proposed a solution to the inconsistent evidence regarding the involvement of sugary liquids, milk products and milk-based meal replacement products in weight gain and loss, pointing out that a majority of the world's adult population--and up to 50% of the population in parts of the U.S. and Europe--cannot digest lactose (milk sugar). [Estep PW 3rd. Many factors modify the physiological response to sugary liquids. "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" 2007 Dec;86(6):1806-8.] Lactose non-digesters derive far fewer sugar calories from milk and milk-based foods, reducing overall caloric intake and greatly boosting the relative proportional intake of satiety-inducing protein and fat. He also suggests that the undigested lactose acts essentially as dietary fiber and that the fermentation of this energy source by gut bacteria might produce additional benefits associated with fiber consumption, including improved insulin regulation and weight loss.

Longevity Research

Dr. Estep is active in aging research and in criticizing anti-aging claims he considers unrealistic or poorly supported. He is the former CEO of the human longevity research biotech company Longenity, Inc., which he founded with Matt Kaeberlein. He has been highly critical of SENS, a plan to reverse and repair the damage of aging. In mid-2006 he was the lead author of a submission by a group of nine scientists to the MIT Technology Review SENS Challenge [Preston W. Estep III, Matt Kaeberlein, Pankaj Kapahi, Brian K. Kennedy, Gordon J. Lithgow, George M. Martin, Simon Melov, R. Wilson Powers III, and Heidi A. Tissenbaum, Life-Extension Pseudoscience and the SENS Plan. "MIT Technology Review", 2006 July/August;109(3)80-84. http://www.technologyreview.com/sens/docs/estepetal.pdf] . The SENS Challenge panel of judges selected this submission as the best but concluded that it failed to meet the burden of proof established by the challenge: to show that "SENS is not worthy of learned debate." Some commentators have been critical of this requirement, saying that virtually any idea is worthy of some level of learned debate, though the terms of the prize were known in advance to all participants. Estep and colleagues failed to win the $20,000 prize on offer, but Technology Review's editor, Jason Pontin, nevertheless awarded them $10,000 for their "careful scholarship". (See the "De Grey Technology Review controversy" entry for more details.) Their submission criticized the SENS plan as essentially bringing Lysenkoism to modern aging research. Estep and colleagues donated the $10,000 award to the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR).

Estep has been openly critical of SENS and of Aubrey de Grey for alleged misrepresentation of scientific evidence, and he suggests that the SENS plan does not address some of the most challenging aspects of aging including unrepaired DNA damage, noncancerous mutation and epimutation of the nuclear genome, and drift of cell and tissue-specific chromatin states. This latter damage type is generally considered a primary cause of cellular dysdifferentiation and transdifferentiation, which degrade organismal function.

While critical of SENS and other anti-aging proposals, Estep is equally critical of the claim made by some in mainstream biogerontology that aging and/or death are incurable. He has challenged claimants to provide evidence for this assertion and points out the absence of evidence or physical law that might stand as a barrier to curing aging [Estep PW. The Promise of Human Lifespan Extension. "Annual Review of Gerontology And Geriatrics: Biopsychosocial Approaches to Longevity" December, 2007. Leonard Poon, PhD, DPhil; Thomas T. Perls, MD, MPH, Editors] .

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