Agingcourt

Shakespeare meets science…  So, the Fifth SENS Conference is looming, and I had a tight deadline on an abstract for SENS Foundation‘s CEO talk.  My tongue-in-cheek response ended up in the program, so I guess there’s no harm in sharing it here.  Let’s call it a gift from me to you, on my birthday.  (Extra marks for spotting references to our LysoSENS work on AMD and heart disease, ApoptoSENS, and GlycoSENS.)

Once more unto the bench, dear friends, once more;
Or close the world up with our agèd dead.
In life there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the cast of death falls on our fears,
Then elevate the actions of the soma;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Repair fair nature with hard-won physic;
Then lend the eye a clearèd aspect;
Let spry sight in portage of the head
Be renewed anon; let enzyme o’erwhelm ills
As joyfully as doth a galled vein
O’ercome and hurry his confounded blood,
Swill’d with the lysosomal nostrum.
Now fix the teeth and flex the softened hide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest human.
Whose blood is free from senescent cell-load!
You here that, like so many visionaries,
Have in these walls from morn till even heard
And writ your notes on well-made argument:
Discover now your purpose; now attest
That those whom you call speakers did inform you.
Be copy now to men of other climes,
And teach them what might be. And you, good people,
Arrayed in seats before me, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; come now swear
That we are worth donations; which I doubt not;
For there is none of us so mean and base,
That hath not noble intent in our mind.
You see us stand as scientists in our labs,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘Good for Aubrey, Michael, and SENS Five!’

EXEUNT OMNES, to Agingcourt.

Too much?  Now, somewhere I have a half-written script about Hamlet and quantum mechanics…