Bloomsbury snaps up 'invaluable' exploration of ageing

Bloomsbury has acquired a “revelatory” book about the science of ageing from a computational biologist.

Publishing director Alexis Kirschbaum acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Andrew Steele’s Immortal: The New Science of Ageing – and How We Could Stop It from Chris Wellbelove at Aitken Alexander Associates. North American rights went to Kris Puopolo at Doubleday, and rights have also been sold in China, Italy, Portugal and Romania. Bloomsbury will publish Immortal in 2020.

The book explores how to live healthier for longer. Journeying through the fundamentals of human biology, it shows what is happening to our bodies as we age, and examines the cutting-edge science that is taking place in biology labs to find a way to stop the process, according to a Bloomsbury spokesperson.

Kirschbaum said: "There is a huge preoccupation with disease and ageing in our culture. Immortal will be an invaluable introduction to the science that is paving the way for a revolution in medicine. It has the potential to not only change the way we think about growing old, but also our understanding of what it means to be human.”

Steele, a 32-year-old computational biologist and research Fellow at the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research centre, in London, said: “I'm really excited to be working with Bloomsbury, and I think Alexis is the perfect editor for this book.

“The biology of ageing is the most important science of our time. An average 80-year-old is 50 times more likely to die than an average 30-year-old—and we now starting to understand the fundamental processes behind this which will allow us to turn back the clock. We are sowing the seeds of a revolution in how we approach biology, and practise medicine. This is a story I can’t wait to tell.”