Translating Aging

On Translating Aging, we talk with the worldwide community of researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors who are moving longevity science from the lab to the clinic. We bring you a commanding view of the entire field, in the words of the people and companies who are moving it forward today. The podcast is sponsored by BioAge labs, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing therapies to extend human healthspan by targeting the molecular causes of aging.

Latest episodes

Mar 23, 2022 • 37min

Aging Goes to Washington! — The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (Sonia Arrison and Dylan Livingston)

In today's episode, Chris is joined by two leaders of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, A4LI, the first and only 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization founded with the goal of creating social and political action around the issues of combating age-related chronic conditions and increasing our number of healthy, disease-free years. Sonia Arrison is a best-selling author, analyst, entrepreneur, and investor who is founder of 100 Plus Capital, Chair of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, co-founder of Unsugarcoat Media (acquired by Medium), and an associate founder of Singularity University. Dylan Livingston, the founder and president of A4LI, has a background in political organizing at the state and national levels.The conversation begins with our guests reviewing their journey to the world of longevity science and ultimately A4LI. They then explore many aspects of their organization including the needs it will address, the obstacles it will encounter and how it will overcome them, and its plan for succeeding in its mission. They go on to share what they have already accomplished, their ties on both sides of the aisle in Congress, Silicon Valley's current perspective on their work, and how listeners can help them achieve their mission. Drawing the episode to a close, Sonia and Dylan share their vision for what success would look like for A4LI five years down the road.In this episode, you will learn about the need for an organization such as A4LI to create social and political action around age-related conditions, and how our guests plan to fill this need both now and into the future.Episode Highlights:Sonia and Dylan's journey to the area of longevity and longevity science How they both came to be involved with A4LI The unmet needs that A4LI will address The obstacles it will meet in pursuing its mission and how it will overcome them The sense in which biology of aging is underfunded A4LI's plan for succeeding in its mission The Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation What it has accomplished already The ties it has made with both Democrats and Republicans Silicon Valley's perspective on their work How researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors can help A4LI Sonia and Dylan's vision of success for A4LI in 5 yearsQuotes:“Sonia has been intimately involved since the organization's inception. And I'm really happy that she is able to be the chair of the board because her leadership and guidance has been absolutely crucial.”“Essentially A4LI will be establishing a line of communication between the longevity industry and elected officials.”“There's a lot of longevity companies out there who are doing some really cool things that are going to extend our health spans. And, and so we need to make sure that the atmosphere is right for that.”“We look to kind of educate, you know, not only politicians, but also the voting public on what's possible.”“What we're saying here is, what I hear you saying is, it should be okay for a company to say we're a longevity company.”“You'd think that the government would want to fund that more, and they should, because of the e massive impact that a drug that treats aging could have.”“Even if funding is coming in from the private sector, biotech companies still stand to gain from formalized efforts, because they're going to get a smoother regulatory environment and potentially greater legitimacy for the products and ideas that they're developing. ““By simply doing what other advocacy efforts do - that is public persuasion campaigns, their advertising - I think we can really open some ears up and get people focused on this space a little more.”“One of the things that was really important to me about getting involved in this is that it remained bipartisan, and so far, we've managed to do a really good job of having people on both sides of the aisle.”“I think people in Silicon Valley are interested and excited, and are just sort of waiting to see what's going to happen, and, you know, just how interested Congress might be.”“Everything is going to change with the introduction of an effective longevity drug. So, you know, we need to help the government and institutions prepare for that.”“Once somebody starts stealing your idea, you know that it's gold.”Links:Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInA4LI Homepage

Mar 9, 2022 • 47min

Natural history & the evolution of aging (Professor Steven Austad — University of Alabama)

Professor Steven Austad is a distinguished researcher in geroscience and the Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He's also the Director of the Nathan Shock Center at UAB and the Senior Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research.Today, Professor Austad joins Bob Hughes to discuss the biology of aging. He begins by narrating the discovery that sparked his interest in aging and his transition from animal behavior to the biology of aging. He discusses how these discoveries led him to the rate of living theory—the idea that the rate of aging is determined by your metabolic rate—and explains a somewhat paradoxical aspect to this theory: the hummingbird, which has a high metabolic rate, is relatively long-lived. He goes on to review evolutionary ideas to understand the rate of living theory, shares his striking discovery about how possums age more slowly in the absence of predation, and describes both why birds of flight live longer than terrestrial birds and the unusually long lifespan of bats.Professor Austad talks of how natural history observations can accelerate more molecular and pharmacologic insights into human health, explaining, “Evolution is smarter than you.” He shares his perspective of the research enterprise: what we do well, what we don't do well, and how we can be better. He also details where he stands on aging in the private sector and for-profit aging companies, the mechanisms of age-related decline, and gives details about his bet with Jay Olshansky about a 150-year-old person being alive by 2150. Finally, Professor Austad reveals his expectations on whether more people will live to be more than 120 or 150 in the second half of the century due to interventions, and shares what he would focus on if he was given $1 billion.In this episode, you'll learn about aging in animals and humans and the factors that determine their longevity. You also hear about aging in the private sector as well as comparing today's interventions to aging with evolutionary stimulus.Episode Highlights:Professor Austad's transition from animal behavior to aging The striking differences in aging between a South American species of opossums and mice The rate of living theory The constant heartbeat theory—understanding the impact of heartbeat rate and longevity An alternative to the rate of living theory—the evolutionary approach Professor Austad's study and discovery on the aging of possums without predator interference Why birds of flight live longer than terrestrial birds Current estimates on bat longevity and why bats have a long lifespan How natural history observations can accelerate more molecular or pharmacologic insights into human health How evolution is smarter than humans Professor Austad's view of the research enterprise Aging in the private sector and for-profit aging companies Mechanisms in age-related decline Professor Austad's bet with Jay Olshansky about a living 150-year-old person by 2150.Quotes:"The interesting thing is that project was about the sex ratio of the pups and was eventually published in Nature. And by the time it came out, I totally lost interest in that project, and I was off studying aging.""Evolution has this wonderful capacity to take a single-cell fertilized egg and have it develop into a healthy adult in some kind of species. It would seem to be just much easier to simply maintain that healthy adult once you have it, but yet it's almost ubiquitous that when aging occurs, that healthy adult gradually loses its health.""One of the evolutionary ideas to understand that was that evolution is all about reproduction, and what evolution will favor is whatever physiology maximizes reproductive rate.""One of the things about possums that's important to note is that about 80% of them are ultimately killed by predators.""So it's clear that the lack of predators had really had an impact on those opossums because they were just like the animals of the Galapagos, completely unafraid of humans.""The longest-lived wild bat is reported to be 41 years. And that's an animal that's about a fifth the size of a mouse.""High-frequency hearing is one of the first things we lose, but bats have to maintain that year after year after year because getting their food depends on it. They find their animals in the dark by screaming and listening for the echoes. So the fact that a bat can live over 40 years in the wild strikes me as much more impressive than if it lived 60 years in a cave somewhere.""One of my favorite quotes is that evolution is smarter than you are. I think that's true because it's just so long to experiment. And so I think evolution will have come up with solutions to, let's say, how to maintain muscles better, maintain vision longer, or maintain nerves better in some species than we currently already do in humans.""I think scientists are increasingly conservative because they want to be able to do something that they know works. And most people I know have at least half of their next grant proposal already done, half the research done before submitting the proposal. And that, to me, is a good recipe for incremental advances, but not a recipe for major breakthroughs."Links:Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInProfessor Steven Austad LinkedInProfessor Steven Austad Wikipedia

Dec 15, 2021 • 37min

Personalized cell therapies at scale (Dr. Nabiha Saklayen — Cellino)

Dr. Nabiha Saklayen is CEO & co-founder of Cellino, a personalized regenerative medicine company developing an AI-guided laser editing platform for autologous cell-based therapies. Cellino’s proprietary technology aims to make personalized stem cell-derived therapies scalable for the first time. Dr. Saklayen received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Fellow. In this episode, she joins Chris Patil to discuss autologous cell therapy and the strides Cellino has made in cell therapy using Machine Learning and laser technology. Dr. Saklayen talks about the challenges that come with autologous cell therapy, particularly in the manufacturing and cost aspect, and how Cellino infuses automation to make this procedure easier. She discusses how machine learning is integrated in the whole process and gives a brief insight into her career as a physicist and founding Cellino. She rounds up by discussing the future of Cellino and how Cellino strives to provide solutions in cell therapy that would change the world one patient at a time and at low cost. In this episode, you’ll learn what cell therapy is and how Dr. Saklayen, through Cellino, is reshaping the world of cell therapy and biotech as we know it. Episode Highlights: ● What is cell therapy?● Defining autologous cell therapies● Examining the challenges with autologous cell therapy● Cellino as a thought leader in the biotech industry● The power of automation and laser therapy● How machine learning contributes● Dr. Saklayen’s career journey● Going from a blood cell to a stem cell - Sendai virus and episomal vectors● How to determine the success of an IPSC induction● The future of Cellino● Targeting diseases of aging● How Cellino is providing solutions in aging aspects● Cell therapies over small molecules● Cellino’s goal for the next five years Quotes: “Cell therapy is a therapy where you make new cells for the patient and transplant them into the body to change the outcome of a disease or trajectory of a disease.” “It's about throughput. It's about yield. It's about consistency.” “The way we automate this process is by using machine learning algorithms that have been trained to look at images of cells and tell us which cells are high quality and which cells are not.” “It's really amazing to be able to tap into image-based machine learning algorithms and route the autonomous self-driving car industry towards advancing a lot of the neural nets that we're using in our training.” “I decided I want to be closer to real-world applications.” “Working together as an industry is going to be very important.” “Where we'd like to be in five years is we want to have our platform developed to a point where we can generate high quality patient specific cells in a reproducible manner, and do that for clinical doses.” Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.com Translating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcast BIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.com BIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabs BIOAGE Labs LinkedIn Dr. Saklayen's TechCrunch Disrupt Talk Dr. Saklayen's LinkedIn

Dec 1, 2021 • 45min

DISCO: A New Model for Entrepreneurship in Longevity Biotech (Dr. James Peyer — Cambrian Biopharma)

Dr. James Peyer, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Cambrian Biopharma, a Distributed xDevelopment Company developing therapeutics targeting the biological drivers of aging.Cambrian Biopharma brings together experts, scientists, and experienced company builders in a new model of entrepreneurship related to health span and aging. Dr. Peyer was previously the founder of Apollo Ventures, a successful venture capital firm focused on the longevity biotech space. He has spoken on the topic of longevity biotech and investing for Bloomberg, The Economist, TEDx, Longevity Leaders, ETH Zurich, and the Max Planck Institute on the Biology of Aging. Today, Dr. Peyer joins host Chris Patil to discuss venture capitalism in the longevity space and the new models that are changing the game. After discussing his previous experiences with VC, Dr. Peyer introduces the Distributed Development Company (DISCO) model, which allows scientists to partner with an umbrella company (like Cambrian) instead of selling their discovery to a pharma company. He explains how this model allows investors to support scientists through the whole process of drug development, from initial idea to commercialization, while prioritizing the quality of the science above everything else. Dr. Peyer then goes on to give some details about Cambrian’s success so far and how it sources and supports up-and-coming talent in the longevity field. He finishes up by making some predictions about the future of biotech companies and how the DISCO model will have a big role to play. In this episode, you’ll learn about venture capitalism’s role in scientific discovery and development and why Dr. Peyer believes a new model is necessary to remove the inefficiencies in the current process. Episode Highlights: · Dr. Peyer’s experience with Apollo Ventures and why he’s moved on to Cambrian Biopharma· The future of the longevity space will come in two stages: reusing insights into what makes us age to build drugs for today, and using those safe and effective drugs to slow down the rate of aging in healthy people· In the long run, company-based models will be better than fund-based ones for the longevity space· The Distributed Development Company model (aka DISCO)· Cambrian started with three programs and has scaled up to over fourteen in two years· Cambrian prioritizes the quality of the science over hype· Cambrian has raised about $160 million since 2019, including $100 million Series C financing at the end of October· Cambrian sources talent through constant monitoring of the scientific field· The DISCO model was designed to correct inefficiencies in the process of getting funding for scientists and their discoveries· Drug development is a risky process, and Cambrian ensures success by carefully monitoring progress at every stage· Being a bona fide longevity biotech organization means being willing to support every single program from funding to commercialization· There are opportunities to partner with big pharma companies, but commitment to the whole process is the default· Cambrian’s two publicly-disclosed programs are with Vita Therapeutics, a cell engineering company run out of Johns Hopkins· One of the advantages Cambrian can provide to scientists is the ability to keep their discoveries as trade secrets as long as possible to maximize their patent lifespan· The potential for the DISCO model to be used in other fields beyond longevity· The possibility of failure and how Cambrian works to avoid it by being realistic and strategic and bringing expertise on board· DISCO works really well for asset-centric breakthroughs made by very small companies or at universities, but it’s not the catch-all solution for everything—for example, tech platforms may be a better choice for bigger biotechs, while founder-led biotechs are better for young entrepreneurs· External factors in aging· Predictions for the field ten years from now Quotes: “I like to say that we get to take the best parts of being a VC, a pharma company, and an entrepreneurial biotech, and very few of the negatives.” “When we raise capital into Cambrian, what we get to do is we have our Cambrian team, which cares exclusively about the quality of the science, right? Not the hype or the number of Twitter likes around some particular discovery, but exclusively about the quality of the science.” “Cambrian breaks apart the existing longevity biotech field at the academic level, into thirteen different focus areas that we are constantly monitoring.” “I think that our model was designed to correct some of the inefficiencies that happen for scientists and scientific founders first, and it also is a happy accident that that model is also, I think, the more investable and more scalable one.” “Creating an organization that can really assess a group on whether it’s sink or swim based on the science and not the ability to raise money, I think has been a huge advantage for us.” “The reality of the situation is when a drug starts its first human clinical trial, there is about a 10% chance that it will ultimately make it to approval. And if you select just on, like, venture-backed biotechs from really smart groups, that number only goes up to about 15-16%.” “With every single program that we get involved with, if the science continues to look great, that means we are going to be there with that group, providing the funding, the organizational structure, everything to see that all the way through to commercialization.” “The value of any drug is driven essentially by its patent life.” “Models like the DISCO model that we’re using with Cambrian are actually going to replace a big chunk of early-stage venture capital in the biotech space and particularly for asset-centric companies.” “I sometimes call this model of biotech, the ‘hungry beast’ model of building biotechs.” “We’re just much more hands-on, right? We want to be doing the research and development, and the funding, and a lot of the strategy, together with the scientists that we start things with, which doesn’t fit for everybody.” Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.com Translating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcast BIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.com BIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabs BIOAGE Labs LinkedIn Cambrian Biopharma Homepage

Nov 10, 2021 • 40min

Big Data and Human Health & Longevity (Prof. Michael Snyder — Stanford Medicine)

Professor Michael Snyder is the Chair of Genetics at Stanford School of Medicine, where his research group develops and uses technologies to study biological regulatory networks and applies these approaches to understand human variation and health. He's founded multiple biotech startups and has authored a book titled Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know. Today, Professor Snyder joins host Bob Hughes to discuss the impact of big data on human health. He reviews the results of his research, carried out on 109 people including himself, which entails collecting numerous types of health data and building an informative data profile, as opposed to the traditional approach of collecting just a few pieces of information. He goes on to share his personal story of how collecting deep data on himself helped him change his lifestyle after being diagnosed as a type two diabetic - using precision medicine to control diabetes. Professor Snyder also explores how DNA methylation can be used to track aging patterns and ageotypes, as well as the relationship between aging and Big Data collection, and also discusses health and longevity from his viewpoint, particularly from the standpoint of boosting the immune system. In this episode, you’ll learn how Big Data can influence our health, and why Professor Snyder believes that the transformation of healthcare begins with deep-diving into data. Episode Highlights: ● Understanding precision medicine and personalized medicine● How Big Data influences individual health● Professor Snyder’s research results on 109 people● The impacts of deep data profiles● How Professor Snyder changed his lifestyle after deep-diving into his data● Using precision medicine to control diabetes● DNA Methylation and tracking aging patterns● Selection criteria for the 109 research subjects● Professor Snyder’s growth over the years from yeast biology● Human health and longevity from Professor Snyder’s viewpoint Quotes: “We're actually much more focused, I would say, on precision health, trying to keep people healthy at an individualized level, and trying to use big data to do just that.” “We're in a world now where you can just collect so much deeper data on people.” “I liken it to a jigsaw puzzle. If I want to see what the picture is in a puzzle, looking at one or two pieces of a 1000 person puzzle isn't going to tell me the picture, even 15 pieces probably won't do it. But I want to look at as many pieces as possible. And that's what big data is all about.” “One aspect is to collect data, the other is to do it over time.” “A lot of people who survived the COVID infections wind up being type two diabetics on a 4% increase, which is a pretty large number of people.” “Everybody has different aging patterns, and so the way we think about this is like a car. Your car as a whole gets older over time, but some parts wear out first. ” “Having good biomarkers for aging, we think, is a big deal.” “Why are we measuring 15 things? We should be measuring thousands.” “There's a ton of investment going into longevity these days - billions of dollars now into these new startups.” “Your immune system starts plummeting in your 60s, as I say, and that just leaves you more and more vulnerable anytime after that.” “I think we can transform healthcare. I think you'll see big changes in the next 10 years in terms of home testing, all this sort of stuff.” Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.com Translating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcast BIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.com BIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabs BIOAGE Labs LinkedIn The Snyder Lab Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know

Oct 27, 2021 • 42min

Accelerating drug discovery for aging and its diseases (Ben Kamens - Spring Discovery)

Ben Kamens is the founder and CEO of Spring Discovery, a company devoted to accelerating therapies for aging and its diseases. Prior to that, Ben was the first engineer for Khan Academy, which provides free online education to millions of users around the world. Today Ben joins host Chris Patil to discuss Spring Discovery’s mission to increase healthy lifespan and dramatically reduce disease, his experience with Khan Academy and how it connected to his work in biotechnology, and overcoming challenges in the field of aging. Ben tells Chris about his pragmatic approach to building a company, how Spring Discovery plans to accelerate drug discovery and clinical development, and their collegial relationship with BioAge and other companies in the longevity biotech sector. Ben chats about Spring Discovery’s recent Series B funding, then offers a sneak peek into their therapeutic pipeline, and details his experience running a nonprofit clinical trial for a generic drug to fight against COVID, including what this taught him about testing drugs for age-related indications. Finally, Ben shares his favorite aspect of longevity science that his company is not currently working on, and where he sees the field of aging moving toward over the next five to ten years.To learn more about Ben and Spring Discovery’s work to accelerate drug discovery with machine learning, visit springdiscovery.com.Episode Highlights:Ben Kamens is the founder and CEO of Spring Discovery; he was also the first engineer for Khan AcademyIntroduction to Spring Discovery and how recent Series B funding will help the company advance its work to increase healthy lifespan and dramatically reduce diseaseHis initial skepticism and passion for fighting disease Overcoming obstacles in the field of agingBuilding value and resources as a company over timeAccelerating drug discovery and clinical developmentMachine learning approachSpring Discovery’s therapeutic pipelineBen’s involvement running a nonprofit clinical trial for a generic drug against COVID, and what this taught him about testing drugs for age-related indicationsYou can read Ben’s article “COVID-19 is the latest disease to point at our need to treat immune aging” hereFavorite aspect of longevity science that his company is not currently working onQuotes:“I couldn't think of a more important mission to try to enable than battling diseases of aging. And our mission is to give the best technology possible to these people who are doing what we think is the most important work possible.”“I came to this field as an outsider and somebody who's really a team builder, and interested in deploying the intersection of scientists and technology to try to fight disease.”“I am an extremely pragmatic person, especially when it comes to company building and entrepreneurialism.”“When you mention aging, you're immediately talking about this extremely broad array of biological phenomena, some of which are going to be relevant clinically, some of which are not.”“This presented a real opportunity to build the best company in the world at measuring the many changes that occur in us as we age.”“We've essentially taken an engineering throughput mindset to disentangling the many dimensions of age-related changes that accrue in our cells and tissues over time, and built a company around getting really, really good at that, and then using that to much more quickly search for therapies.”“You can think of it as a big engine that takes in a whole bunch of primary human samples, spits out this very multidimensional, complete view of cellular function, but does it in a big single screen that's combining tons of phenotypic imaging data with proteomics data, and then uses a set of models we built up to identify different cellular functions that are being identified in that raw data.”“I do not view that as competition whatsoever. I have nothing but respect for BIOAGE.”“We can cause all sorts of problems for ourselves. I don't really know what a competitor would do that would really dramatically change our trajectory.”“Our current focus is in the world of immune aging, and specifically how immune aging applies to both the pulmonary and skin therapeutic areas.”“We were following our standard path. And then, as you know, the more data that came out, the more it became very obvious that, more so than any other comorbidity, one's age defined one’s outcome with COVID. And it was almost looking like people who are much older who get COVID have an entirely different disease than people who are much younger.”“For most diseases, they are way worse for you if you're older, and so where is all the therapeutic effort that is focused on that huge fact in COVID?”“I am very uniquely proud that we found a way to do this.”“For me, this was just validation that there are ways to run pragmatic, cost effective, timely clinical trials for diseases that are exacerbated by the biology of aging.”Links:Email questions, comments and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInSpring Discovery Website springdiscovery.com

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Translating Aging

Latest episodes

Aging Goes to Washington! — The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (Sonia Arrison and Dylan Livingston)

Measuring Biological Age (Dr. Morgan Levine)

Stem Cell Biology and Longevity Research with Dr. Thomas Rando