Xenocatabolism

Xenocatabolism is a concept in bioremediation that was introduced by Dr. Aubrey de Grey on May 29th, 2007 at the Googleplex Google TechTalks. Dr. de Grey posited that there are microbes that feed off of substances such as amyloid, cholesterol and other related substances in places that are full of human remains, such as graveyards. This was based off of the microbial infallibility hypothesis. He states that "the biomedical approach would be to identify the genetic basis for that capacity, and to put one or two genes into ourselves, thereby enhancing our own ability to break things down, and to thereby get rid of things that we cannot naturally break down." In order to add credibility the concept, de Grey created an experiment using soil from a graveyard and took the bacteria from it. He used lipofuscin, "one of the major things that accumulates indigestibly in the body" - which some of the bacteria broke down, giving some credit to the concept.