Excellent hand and hand conversation between David Sinclair and Bracken Darrell. David is an expert in longevity and life extension, and Bracken is an experienced successful businessman, CEO of multinational Logitech.
The encounter took place on February 92021, during an online scientific symposium organized by the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR).
The Symposium was launched under the following theme: “The Future is Now: Innovations in AI and Big Data for Healthspan and Longevity and it was a tribute to global geroscience visionary Sami Sagol.
If you’re familiar with the longevity field very likely you know who David Sinclair is, but for those who haven’t heard of Bracken Darrell before, he is an experienced and successful businessman, CEO of the Multinational Logitech.
Well known longevity leader Nir Barzilai acted as presenter and moderator of the conversation.
Julian Huxley was part of the intellectual dynasty started by TH Huxley, and is more influenced by Buddhist ideas than Judeo-Christian. “T. H. Huxley was a paleontologist with a medical background who gained great prominence in the nineteenth century as one of the foremost defenders of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Victorians were often inclined to see him as “the living embodiment of science militant,”(8) for Huxley actually clashed with contemporary defenders of Biblical supernaturalism in the name of science.(9) A very late product of his intellectual career, Evolution and Ethics (1893) shows him in a mellowed, reflective mood. The radical disjunction between the ethical and the cosmic processes such as is frequently highlighted here hardly squares with “orthodox” Darwinism; in fact Irvine has called Huxley’s effort in this context a “somewhat puzzling manoeuvre” that is “full of talk about Indian mysticism and of protest about the cruelties of evolution.”(10) Yet his overall treatment of his theme is not a matter that need concern us now.(11) What must be noted, on the other hand, is that in the course of his professed endeavor to inquire into the origin and the basis of ethical values from an evolutionary standpoint, Huxley indeed undertook a brief survey of the leading philosophies that had helped to form mankind’s conceptions of such values. He emphasized in this connection that India had engendered a distinctive outlook on life, and some of the ideas central to that outlook (as, for example, karman) actually made a notable impression on him. But it is upon a particular religion of Indian origin, namely Buddhism, that he chose to dwell at length and, I think, in a way that merits close attention.” Buddhism is” system which knows no God in the Western sense; which denies a soul to man; which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and hope of it a sin; which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice; which bids men look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation; which in its original purity, knew nothing of vows of obedience, abhorred intolerance, and never sought the aid of the secular arm; yet spread over a considerable moiety of the Old World with marvellous rapidity, and is still, with whatever base admixure of foreign superstitions, the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind.”
British perceptions of Buddhism tended to be surprisingly vague during the early part of the nineteenth century. Even so reputed an “authority” on India at the time as James Mill, for example, does not appear to have known anything definite on the subject; his famous The History of British India (1818) incorporates some lengthy commentaries on India’s cultural and intellectual achievements, but save for a bare reference, Buddhism, significantly, escaped his consideration. Evidently, James Mill, to all intents and purposes, viewed India as home to a single indigenous religion, Hinduism.(1) These perceptions, however, changed in due course, thanks to the advance of Oriental scholarship, especially Western research on Buddhist textual sources.
Foresight biotech & health extension group sponsored by 100 plus capital.
Accelerator applications are open now: https://foresight.org/biotech-health-extension-program.
Industry blindspots: Unincentivized work that could dramatically advance progress on aging.
SONIA ARRISON, 100 Plus Capital. Sonia Arrison is a best-selling author, analyst, entrepreneur, and investor. She is the founder of 100 Plus Capital, co-founder of Unsugarcoat Media (acquired by Medium), and associate founder and advisor to Singularity University in Mountain View, California. Her research focuses on exponentially growing technologies and their impact on society. Her most recent book, 100 Plus: How the Coming Guests Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith, addresses the social, economic, and cultural impacts of radical human longevity. It gained national bestseller status and keeps Sonia busy speaking all over the world. Sonia is a Board Member at the Thiel Foundation, Foresight Institute, and Woodland School. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia, and author of two previous books (Western Visions and Digital Dialog). She was previously a Director and Senior Fellow in Tech Studies at the Pacific Research Institute and a columnist at TechNewsWorld.
KARL PFLEGER, Agingbiotech.info. Karl Pfleger, PhD (Stanford CS, Machine Learning) now focuses on aging & longevity after a successful tech career (mySimon, Google). A long-time donor to the Buck Institute and SENS Foundation, he is also an angel investor who has backed over 15 agingrelated startups. He is the creator of AgingBiotech. info, a free public resource to track the commercialization progress of the aging biotech sector and related information.
MIKE WEST, AgeX Michael D. West, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc, which is focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics targeting human aging. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cellular ageing. He has focused his academic and business career on the application of developmental biology to agerelated degenerative disease. He was the founder and first CEO of Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN), and from 1992 to 1998, he held various positions, including CEO, Director, and Vice President. From 1998 to 2007, Dr West held positions as CEO, President, and Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT), which was eventually acquired by Astellas Pharma, Inc. From 2007 to 2018, he was CEO/Co-CEO of BioTime, Inc. (NYSE American: BTX).
CRISPR/Cas9 treatment allowed mice to live 25% longer and be physically stronger. Biologists see these results being relatively easy to reproduce on humans in a clinical setting.
Dr. Ann Aerts MD, Head of the Novartis Foundation and Member of the US National Academies of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity.
Dr. Ann Aerts, M.D. is Head of the Novartis Foundation, an organization committed to transforming the health of low-income populations, by leveraging the power of data, digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to re-imagine health and care around the world.
Dr. Aerts holds a Degree in Medicine, a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.
Dr. Aerts is passionate about improving population health through data, digital health and AI, chairs the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development Working Group on Digital and AI in Health and is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health.
In 2018, Dr. Aerts served as a member of the US National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on Improving the Quality of Health Care Globally and sits on the US National Academies of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity. Dr. Aerts has authored numerous publications on digital health, innovative approaches and multi-sector partnerships to address global health challenges.
Before leading the Novartis Foundation, Dr. Aerts was Franchise Medical Director Critical Care for Novartis Pharma in Basel and Therapeutic Area Head Cardiovascular and Metabolism for Novartis Pharma Belgium.
Prior to joining Novartis, Dr. Aerts served as Director of the Lung and Tuberculosis Association in Belgium and as Head of the Health Services Department of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. She has also worked as Health Coordinator for the ICRC in several countries.
By blocking a receptor in macrophages, researchers were able to reverse aging in mice.
There are many suggested causes of old age. Telomere shortening, DNA damage, and depletion of stem cells are just a few of the proposed sources.
Recently, researchers found that a type of cell called a macrophage also plays a crucial role in aging. Macrophages are phagocytotic immune cells; they consume cells and other pathogens flagged by the immune system as dangerous. When macrophages need to consume a pathogen, their energy needs drastically go up.
Remember in biology when you were told that the mitochondria was the “powerhouse of the cell?” Cells produce energy through two main ways: glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. Both of these processes work inside the mitochondria by converting glucose into ATP, a molecule that acts cell’s “currency” on energy. Glycolysis converts glucose to ATP by degrading glucose into pyruvate. This reaction triggers the production of 2 ATP per molecule of glucose, which allows the cell can then use for other biological functions. Oxidative phosphorylation, on the other hand, is far more complicated, but also yields much more ATP. In a nutshell, it strips the electrons from hydrogen molecules so it can create an electrical gradient and produce up to 38 ATP per glucose molecule. Researchers found that as macrophages age, they tend to shut down these “metabolic pathways,” as they are called.
This is the FOURTH PART of the interview with Harold Katcher in Modern Healthspan YouTube channel.
Dr. Harold Katcher is a professor of Biology at the University of Maryland. He has been a pioneer in the field of cancer research, in the development of modern aspects of gene hunting and sequencing. He carries expertise in bioinformatics, chronobiology, and biotechnology. Dr. Katcher is currently working in the capacity of Chief Technical Officer at Nugenics Research exploring rejuvenation treatments in mammals. In May 2020 there was a paper published on biorxiv about the rejuvenation of rats by over 50%. We did a review of the paper which you can find linked to above. In this interview series we talk with Dr. Harold Katcher, one of the main authors of the paper about the experiment, the steps to get validation, commercialization and how the results fit into his theories of aging.
In this video Dr. Katcher explains his theories on what causes aging, which he believes is a process that is programmed into us and is therefore malleable. I find his theories very interesting and compelling.
Dr. Katcher’s 2015 paper on the theory of aging is here: Towards an evidence-based model of aging. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26054348/
The paper on plasma exchange can be found here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.07.082917v1.full.
If you would like to support our channel, we’d love a coffee…thank you! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mhealthspan.
Excerpts from an enlightening interview / conversation conducted by Brian Kennedy with Matt Kaeberlein on the biology of aging. The interview took place in November 2020 as the first one under the healthy longevity webinar series organized by Brian Kennedy from the National University of Singapure (NUS).
During the conversation, Matt Kaeberlein makes a nice description about what aging is, as well as about therapies, drugs and other interventions that, at least in animals of various kinds, manage to modulate (delay / reverse) the progress of aging.
Among other projects, Matt Kaeberlein tells us that he’s planning to conduct an evaluation of various antiaging interventions in dogs.
To watch the entire interview, which has no waste, follow the link in the description of the video.
The interview took place in November 2020 as the first one under the healthy longevity webinar series organized by Dr. Brian Kennedy from the National University of Singapure (NUS). During the conversation, Matt Kaeberlein makes a nice description about what aging is, as well as about therapies, drugs and other interventions that, at least in animals of various kinds, manage to modulate (delay / reverse) the progress of aging.
Among other projects, Pedro currently tells us that he is about to start an evaluation of various antiaging interventions in dogs.
To watch the entire interview, which has no waste, clic here: https://youtu.be/KhWHXU0GTOA
Formic ventures — taking on huge challenges — from virtual reality technologist to longevity biotechnology investor.
Michael Antonov is the Founder and CEO of The Michael Antonov Foundation (https://antonovfoundation.org/), a charitable organization that supports biotechnology research and various causes that improve well being of people around the world, as well as Formic Ventures (https://formic.vc/index.html), an early stage high tech and biotech investment firm focused on prolonging human healthspan and empowering human creativity.
Michael is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist passionate about taking on huge challenges that can make a difference in human lives, such as solving the problem of aging.
Prior to launching the foundation, Michael was a technology executive, most recently as the co-founder and Chief Software Architect at Oculus, acquired by Facebook, where he helped revive the virtual reality industry. Prior to that, Michael was the co-founder and CTO of Scaleform, a user interface software company, whose product is embedded into hundreds of computer, console, and mobile games around the world.
Michael is a graduate of the University of Maryland in the field of computer science and is a member of their alumni hall of fame.
This is the THIRD PART of the interview with Harold Katcher in Modern Healthspan YouTube channel.
Dr. Harold Katcher is a professor of Biology at the University of Maryland. He has been a pioneer in the field of cancer research, in the development of modern aspects of gene hunting and sequencing. He carries expertise in bioinformatics, chronobiology, and biotechnology. Dr. Katcher is currently working in the capacity of Chief Technical Officer at Nugenics Research exploring rejuvenation treatments in mammals. In May 2020 there was a paper published on biorxiv about the rejuvenation of rats by over 50%. We did a review of the paper which you can find linked to above. In this interview series we talk with Dr. Harold Katcher, one of the main authors of the paper about the experiment, the steps to get validation, commercialization and how the results fit into his theories of aging.
In this video we talk about the next steps towards commercialization and how the treatment that is being developed from this research will be made available. Dr. Katcher is very optimistic with a view that the treatment should be on the market within a few years.
The paper can be found here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.07.082917v1.full.
If you would like to support our channel, we’d love a coffee…thank you! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mhealthspan. #HaroldKatcher #SteveHorvath #ReverseAging
