text: Aubrey de Grey (pictured) says ageing is a 'disease that can and should be cured' With his Rasputin beard and lines etched deep into his forehead, Aubrey de Grey looks like a man a lot older than his 51 years. A penchant for beer, fried food and an aversion to exercise could fool you into believing the lanky ex-public schoolboy cares little about ageing. But you would be wrong. For de Grey, a charismatic Harrow School and Cambridge-educated biomedical theorist, firmly believes there is no reason, with the right 'therapies', why any of us shouldn't reach 500, 1,000 or even 5,000 years of age. It sounds bonkers but de Grey's theories have gained him some high-profile supporters in Silicon Valley, the super-rich tech enclave in northern California that is home to more middle-aged billionaires than anywhere else on the planet. PayPal boss Peter Thiel (worth £1.5 billion) donated £2.4 million to de Grey's anti-ageing institute Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS). Senescence is scientific jargon for ageing. While many academics mock him, in age-obsessed California de Grey now regularly breaks bread and funds his research with donations from some of the sharpest minds in the world, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin (who has talked of 'curing death') and Larry Ellison, of Oracle, who are all showing an interest in gerontology, or the study of ageing. Google's Bill Maris, who heads the computer giant's investment arm, said: 'We have tools in the life sciences to achieve anything you have the audacity to envision. I hope to live long enough not to die.' One source at a leading software company told The Mail on Sunday: 'De Grey has tapped a rich vein in Silicon Valley. He's become something of a controversial cheerleader for a generation of tech billionaires who have made their fortunes and now, of course, want to live for ever.' De Grey was raised in Chelsea by his artist mother Cordelia, who left him £11 million when she died in 2011 – £9 million of which he has invested in his company. He spent the remainder on a 'very nice house'. He never knew his father and became fascinated by seeking a cure for ageing while still at Harrow. Scroll down for video . 'Ageing is a disease that can and should be cured,' he says. 'I've been ridiculed but finally people are starting to come round to my way of thinking. Anyone who has ever wanted to change the world has been attacked. Gandhi said first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you and then they say, "We were with you all along".' De Grey's radical thesis is that ageing can be halted and even reversed by treating the human body like a vintage car – 'replace the parts, clean it up, keep it running smoothly way past its expected expiration date'. His argument is that cellular decay causes ageing, illness and, ultimately, death, and that technologies being developed now and inventions in the future will allow us to repair and replace damaged body parts at a cellular level – leading to virtual immortality. People will still die in accidents and from suicide, 'but there is no reason that someone living today shouldn't live to 500, 1,000 years. As the technologies improve, lifespans will increase', says de Grey. He believes the first person who will live to be 1,000 has already been born, and cites research that has dramatically extended the lives of mice, worms and fruit flies as proof science is 'catching up' with his theories that therapies which will genetically alter, replace and repair the cells in our bodies will be the key to eternal life. He accuses the majority of us of being in a 'pro-ageing trance', content to accept ageing and death as inevitable, while the reality is that technology will, within two decades, he says, have advanced far enough that we can replace and repair faulty genes, 'clear out the gunk around cells' and rejuvenate our bodies. It sounds fanciful but as he talks, it is clear that de Grey is empowered by the support of the Silicon Valley billionaires. 'It is a good feeling to finally be getting validation,' he admits. Many academics have dismissed his theories as pie in the sky. It should be noted that much of what he says is theoretical and, critics point out, de Grey has never actually done any practical lab work. De Grey and his biologist wife Adelaide (pictured) have an unconventional marriage and he admits to having 'two younger girlfriends' Nir Barsilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said: 'Based on the biology that we know today, somewhere between 100 and 120 there is a roof in play and I challenge if we can get beyond it.' The oldest human to date was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in August 1997 at the age of 122 years 164 days. De Grey has been mockingly compared to a 'Messiah' figure because of his flowing facial hair, and heads turn in the airport bar as he bangs his glass on the table and loudly pronounces that '150,000 people die every day worldwide and of those people, two-thirds die of ageing one way or another. That's 30 World Trade Centers every day. If I bring forward the cure for ageing by one day I've saved 100,000 lives'. De Grey is notoriously eccentric. He refuses to carry a mobile phone ('anti-social, nasty things') and has never learned to drive due to a 'mental block'. 'Cars can kill people without it being the driver's fault,' he says. He gives interviews to 'spread the word' and has written several anti-ageing books. Last year he featured in a critically acclaimed independent movie, The Immortalists. De Grey and his biologist wife Adelaide, 19 years his senior, have an unconventional marriage and he cheerfully admits to having 'two younger girlfriends', aged 45 and 24. Isn't juggling the needs of three women enough to age any man prematurely? He laughs: 'It keeps me busy.' Critics argue that if he is right and we all live longer, the world's resources will be stretched by overpopulation, but he hits back by saying: 'Society will adapt. People will have fewer children.' What about the cost of keeping so many people alive? 'People will continue to contribute to society because they will be healthier and more productive. 'When people think about longevity they forget about the health and then they start to think this whole thing is morally questionable. It might be technologically fanciful but all we do is medical research. I work on stopping people from getting sicker as they get older. The by-product of that is longevity. 'I have no idea if I will live to 100. I do know I'd like to have the chance to live to 100 when I am 99 rather than having that choice removed from me by declining health.'
target: Aubrey de Grey, 51, believes he will unlock secrets to huge advances in life .
  The former Harrow School and Cambridge scholar is a biomedical theorist .
  He has a hugely rich and influential following in Calfornia's Silicon Valley .
  Raised in Chelsea, he inherited £11million when his mother passed away .
  It's been invested in his Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence .
  The eccentric claims: 'Aging is a disease that can and should be cured'