Google wants to fight death

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With every new initiative that Google comes up with, it is growing into a widely respected organisation. Slowly branching away from its traditional Internet business into mobile phones, hi-tech glasses and even a self-driving car, the company’s latest initiative that is in the pipeline is in the filed of healthcare.

The search giant announced recently that it has founded Calico, a company that will use biotechnology to tackle major illnesses and ageing. One of the interesting things to note is that the new company will be led by Arthur Levinson, chairman of Google’s bitter rival Apple. Arthur Levinson holds a PhD in biochemistry from Princeton and is the chairman of the biotech firm Genentech.
Announcing the creation of Calico, based near Google’s headquarters in San Francisco, Google chief executive Larry Page said: “Illness and ageing affect all our families... from the decreased mobility and mental agility that comes with age, to life-threatening diseases that exact a terrible physical and emotional toll on individuals and families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.” The average life expectancy in India as of 2009 is 64 for men and 67 for women, according to the World Health Organisation.
Arthur Levinson, who is also a member of the Biotech Hall of Fame, said: “I’ve devoted much of my life to science and technology, with the goal of improving human health. Larry’s focus on outsized improvements has inspired me, and I’m tremendously excited about what’s next.” Even Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, was all upbeat about the idea. He said, “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art (Levinson) is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.”
Although the venture is in its early days, Larry Page has hinted that among various illnesses that Calico’s small team will look into will be cancer. In 2008, 7.6 million deaths worldwide were due to the deadly disease. “We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that’ll totally change the world,” Larry Page was quoted by the TIME magazine.