Alex Colville
@AlexJColville
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General Partner at @age1vc extending healthy lifespan. PhD alum of @Thomas_Rando @stanfordmed
Stanford, CA
Joined July 2018
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Why don’t we target the inevitable cause of our decline, aging, before it happens?
Excited to announce a moonshot fund to catalyze the longevity field to new heights. We won’t stop until we all have agency over how long we can live in good health.
Excited to launch a new fund today:
I wrote here about my takeaways from the past decade + predictions for the next:
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The promise of epigenetic reprogramming to reverse aging is the Holy Grail of the aging field. It's led to $3.3B in funding in the past 3 yrs, and despite that, it took until now to see lifespan extension in normal aging mice. Some asked me if it’s legit, so I did a deep dive:
Our new article reveals that gene therapy-mediated partial reprogramming extends lifespan and reverses age-related changes in aged mice, showcasing lifespan extension in wild-type animals through in vivo reprogramming.
@eskamoah
@cc_biology_
@rejuvenatebio
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Wonder what that secretive longevity company funded w/ $3B from
@JeffBezos
and
@yurimilner
has been working on?
SCOOP:
@altos_labs
latest public program is an oligonucleotide inhibiting the retrotransposon LINE-1 to treat progeria.
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If you feel like you’re too young and inexperienced to make a difference in biotech, you need to study
@JoshuaBCohen1
&
@justin_klee
. Yesterday they achieved a historic FDA approval for their drug for ALS…which they came up with in UNDERGRAD
@BrownUniversity
!! Here’s how:
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Remember the supermodel granny drug that extended lifespan by 25% in mice by IL-11 last week? It only took 8 days for a new intervention to come out increasing lifespan by 35%!! Some thoughts:
BREAKING: Rapamycin + trametinib in combination extend maximum lifespan by up to 35% in mice
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One of the biggest cultural shifts in life science PhD programs over the past decade - industry directly replacing academic jobs for graduates
Source:
@NSF
@DrChrisTSmith
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Big news:
@bioagelabs
has filed for IPO!!! Massive moment for the aging field as they will be one of only a handful of companies to make it to the public markets (Unity Biotech, resTORbio, etc). 9 years in the making for BioAge, huge congrats to the team.
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For biotech companies started in the last 50 years that were acquired for at least $10B or that trade at market caps of at least $10B, 6 out of the 21 CEOs were between 29 and 35 years old.
Younger people need to stop waiting around thinking that older folks—especially politicians—are going to fix the world.
The average age of the moon landing control room was 28.
The average age of the Manhattan Project scientist was 25.
US Founding Fathers were only...
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Shockingly few have baked into their mental calculus what this means for the future of biotech.
We found that a drug approved and indicated for aging would conservatively have a peak global market size ~$150-$200 billion annually.
A company that owned only this drug would be more valuable than the top 2 big pharma companies (J&J and Pfizer) in terms of revenue…combined.
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ATTENTION: the biggest longevity biotech milestone achieved to date.
1 - Loyal has earned what we believe is the FDA’s first-ever formal acceptance that a drug can be developed + approved for lifespan extension
2 - We have 'technical section complete' AKA the 'does it work' data for LOY-001 - our large dog lifespan extension drug - is done
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The largest late-stage funding round of a biotech focused on longevity ever!!! $170,000,000. Congrats
@bioagelabs
@kpfortney
@BioAgePodcast
🎉 Here's why:
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The aging field isn't moving fast enough. We deserve a future with autonomy over our own healthspan. Next 5 years are MISSION CRITICAL for the field's acceleration. Stoked + honored to join AFAR's board to hit the gas at an org that I've looked up to for over a decade.
AFAR is pleased to announce the election of
@AlexJColville
of
@age1vc
to its Board of Directors. Please join AFAR in welcoming him to this position, and learn more about his leadership experience here:
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Many people asked what was behind this cultural shift towards industry in academia. Decided to dig into the latest
@NSF
data on sources of R&D funding to find out. The answer is pretty shocking!
One of the biggest cultural shifts in life science PhD programs over the past decade - industry directly replacing academic jobs for graduates
Source:
@NSF
@DrChrisTSmith
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Hard to overstate the impact this will have -> "the fund is authorized to spend up to $1B/yr indefinitely... By comparison, the division of the US National Institute on Aging that supports basic research on the biology of aging spends about $325 million a year"
Lately, a deluge of💰 for anti-aging research.
This time, it's the Saudis. 🛢️🛢️
$1 billion-a-year fund, Hevolution Foundation created to back geroscience research and 💊s.
First project: back anti-aging trial of diabetes drug metformin.
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The longevity field is moving fast(!) and we're all drowning in new papers. We keep running threads on the latest developments in aging research internally. I often get asked about new science in the field, so I'll start sharing some! Here are 5 links from the past few weeks:
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Hosted a fireside chat
@SynBioBeta
! Was fun talking about dog longevity drugs, growing organs, and accurate cheap diagnostics with you
@vkhosla
.
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Recent news from the aging field from the past few weeks. Some highlights: is now the watershed moment for the epigenetic reprogramming field to rejuvenate age?? And new evidence for cell therapy replacement that we're finally at that watershed moment scientifically.
Longevity news roundup: many exciting developments in the past 2 weeks including positive phase I cell therapy data to replace brain cells in humans, a new aging lab at Stanford(!), massive datasets, and a cryopreservation Series B round!
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Longevity news roundup: many exciting developments in the past 2 weeks including positive phase I cell therapy data to replace brain cells in humans, a new aging lab at Stanford(!), massive datasets, and a cryopreservation Series B round!
Longevity news roundup: 12 links from the past 2 weeks (in addition to my recent threads on
@altos_labs
not linked here). Insights on hair loss, evidence of Alzheimer’s 20 years before symptoms, how the brain cleans itself, benefits of fasting in humans, new aging lab, and more:
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OKAY I MISSED A BIG ONE. Out today in
@Nature
"Treatment with anti-IL-11 from 75 weeks of age until death extends the median lifespan of male mice by 22.5% and of female mice by 25%" 🤯
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Rain drop, drop top, new paper drop. 🚨
A 🧵on how to better kill.
New! Online now: Death-seq identifies regulators of cell death and senolytic therapies
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One of the biggest myths of the longevity field? Technology that extends healthy lifespan will only be available to billionaires.
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Would you like to conduct a CRISPR screen studying viability or cell death with half the number of required cells, a faster experimental timeline, the ability to sample timepoints, and increased signal-to-noise? Ask your doctor today because Death-seq may be right for you 🧵
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Longevity news roundup: crazy past 2 weeks...here's 6 links on transmissible Alzheimer’s disease, the biggest $$$ late-stage round yet, major fundraise for a cell therapy co implanting young cells, and a new cryo study:
💰$120M raise for Neurona Therapeutics to advance
The longevity field is moving fast(!) and we're all drowning in new papers. We keep running threads on the latest developments in aging research internally. I often get asked about new science in the field, so I'll start sharing some! Here are 5 links from the past few weeks:
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Really interesting. PhDs studying biology of aging on avg think that:
1) the first person that will live to 150 is alive today
2) that basic biology is most important thing to fund in aging field
3) that despite a recent influx money is still the biggest bottleneck to the field.
Here are some poll results from the Buck Institute’s Student Aging Symposium! Exciting to see how many of the top aging scientists think about the field and the future of longevity
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First time speaking at an event post our
@age1vc
launch last week. 🎉 Very honored and excited to be at
@Longevity_Inv
this week in Gstaad. Stunning venue.
𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 📣 We are excited to announce that
@AlexJColville
, a General Partner at the Longevity Fund, the first longevity-focused VC fund, will be part of our speaker lineup at the Longevity Investors Conference 2023 in Gstaad! 🧬
#LongevityInvestors
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SCOOP: some internet sleuths have delivered more… 🧵
48 hours later, no one from
@altos_labs
has reached out to clarify anything in the thread and this tweet was commented on in 5 different languages. Welcome 200+ new followers & buckle up..we’re just getting started
Wonder what that secretive longevity company funded w/ $3B from
@JeffBezos
and
@yurimilner
has been working on?
SCOOP:
@altos_labs
latest public program is an oligonucleotide inhibiting the retrotransposon LINE-1 to treat progeria.
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You might assume that with $3B fully committed
@Altos_Labs
wouldn't bother w/ fundraising? Incorrect. Someone got jealous of
@sama
’s $7T. SCOOP: have confirmed w/ a foreign investor that Altos had fundraising talks in 2023. Also learned tranche valuations and new investors(!) 🧵
Wonder what that secretive longevity company funded w/ $3B from
@JeffBezos
and
@yurimilner
has been working on?
SCOOP:
@altos_labs
latest public program is an oligonucleotide inhibiting the retrotransposon LINE-1 to treat progeria.
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Longevity 🤝 synthetic biology
@LNuzhna
@MartinBJensen
@bettslacroix
hosted by
@JamieMetzl
@SynBioBeta
. Anyone else doing more than these three to increase variance in the aging field?
@RetroBio_
@GordianBio
@impetusgrants
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Incredibly Novo Nordisk overtook Tesla on market cap today. Shocking to visualize the gap in public interest in Tesla vs Novo, a company literally saving lives every single day.
$TSLA $NVO
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For Stanford grad students + postdocs CSB243 is the best kept secret 🤐. Drug discovery class taught by Ryan Watts (CEO of Denali Tx) & Rami Hannoush. And yes they actually run every class
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Longevity news roundup: 12 links from the past 2 weeks (in addition to my recent threads on
@altos_labs
not linked here). Insights on hair loss, evidence of Alzheimer’s 20 years before symptoms, how the brain cleans itself, benefits of fasting in humans, new aging lab, and more:
Longevity news roundup: crazy past 2 weeks...here's 6 links on transmissible Alzheimer’s disease, the biggest $$$ late-stage round yet, major fundraise for a cell therapy co implanting young cells, and a new cryo study:
💰$120M raise for Neurona Therapeutics to advance
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Lulu helped bring
@cognition_labs
from a blank account to 111k followers in a single launch.
If you’re a founder and not following her writing and advice, it’s an existential threat to your company’s success. She’s a once in a generation force of nature. Rostra will be one to
Rostra is the name of my new company. I left the corporate world in pursuit of this mission:
To help founder-led companies go direct with their comms.
We've already started working! Our first project was the launch for
@cognition_labs
and their AI engineer Devin.
We have a
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Really frustrating that the aging field's reputation problem is not just limited to influencers misinterpreting academic work as we saw last week, but also misleading academic papers fueling the fire.
Pregnancy has been described as a natural stress test. But is this reflected in measures of biological age across pregnancy into the postpartum? What we found came as surprise…
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Just sat in 15 minutes of traffic caused by….a huge spill of thousands of 50mL Falcon tubes all over 101. Only in the Bay.
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Very upsetting news for the longevity field. Dr. Judy Campisi, professor
@BuckInstitute
and co-founder of our portfolio company
@UnityBiotech
, has passed away.
I'm deeply saddened to share that we have lost a remarkable friend, a wonderful mentor and esteemed colleague, Judith Campisi. Judith's impact on those around her was profound and lasting. Her legacy will continue to inspire us all. Rest in peace, Judy. You will be greatly missed
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We've had almost ~50 ppl reach out in the last day about our launch party at JPM tonight!! 🤯 Unfortunately we are at capacity and had to hire a bouncer for the first time in my life so sadly need to keep it at RSVP-ed guest list. Please please do not come to our event if not on
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When I talk about the future of the aging field,
@KKajderowicz
is that future. She is someone who is going to run through walls to make miracles happen.
@age1vc
is so lucky to have Kat as a founding member of the team.
It’s crazy how things come full circle….
When I first met
@AlexJColville
I told him I was frustrated with the lack of longevity community.
So, he encouraged me to build it.
build now, age later
@age1vc
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Longevity news roundup: highlights in the field the past 2 weeks incl another massive lifespan extension study, human clinical trial progress (rapamycin for fertility, BioAge muscle metabolism), and a flurry of new exciting papers on primary drivers and biomarkers of aging. 🧵
Recent news from the aging field from the past few weeks. Some highlights: is now the watershed moment for the epigenetic reprogramming field to rejuvenate age?? And new evidence for cell therapy replacement that we're finally at that watershed moment scientifically.
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It's been two decades since the field has demonstrated it can make mice live to the human equivalent of 130 years old. How close are we to doing the same in humans?
20 years ago, scientists figured out how to make mice live 150% longer by altering one singular gene. What have we learned since this groundbreaking discovery?
In our debut video,
@alexkesin
seeks to find out.
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Blown away at how many people in Toronto showed up to its first longevity conference! Talent here is cracked. Crazy how Silicon Valley/US consistently overlooks and underrates amount and quality of young talent in Toronto.
@c_hudpaz
kicking things off talking
@time_initiative
Join us on Jan 31 for the inaugural Toronto Aging Biology Symposium:
🧬 Internationally recognized leaders and scientists will cover topics on longevity research, clinical translation, startups and VC
📝 Sign up (free!) for talks/panels + networking from 9am to 4:30pm
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Hard to believe that we may one day be able to regenerate human brains and that the key to this may reside within the smiley creature below.
Your annual reminder that some of the absolute coolest labs on the planet work with axolotls.
@EcheverriLab
@Jmona_regen
@RogersLabUCD
The axolotl has the ability to regenerate its brain.
Using single-cell transcriptomics, four studies in Science last year revealed evolutionary innovations in reptile and amphibian brains.
Learn more on
#WorldAnimalDay
:
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Pretty surreal coming from the man who catalyzed me to work in this field. Thank you David!
Congrats Alex. The new fund looks exciting. Grateful you joined our lab all those years ago 🙏
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Some highlights from big moment for aging field right now. FDA commish
@DrCaliff_FDA
in a fireside chat with some leaders from geroscience field discussing future regulatory path for drugs which treat aging instead of single diseases
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The most influential funder of science/deep tech you've never heard of back at it again to casually map the brain to build safe general intelligence.
Very happy to be backing the Enigma Project at Stanford. I believe we need to understand the brain asap in order to design safe general intelligence
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@davidasinclair
@CNN
*Scientists can temporarily with unknown perdurance partially reverse some selected markers of aging (and not others) in a single tissue, the retina, in mice
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Couldn’t feel more blessed to be tapped by
@LauraDeming
to run
@age1vc
alongside her and an insanely talented team. age1 is the next fund in the series from The Longevity Fund, which Laura started as a 16 year old Thiel Fellow.
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Venture firm
@age1vc
launched last week with $35m aimed at extending healthy lifespan. In this episode, we hear from co-founder
@AlexJColville
about his path from scientist to investor—and how age1 plans to use its fund to catalyze progress in longevity.
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Want to feel energized to do something great? Watch this!
On February 13th,
@cradle_health
successfully vitrified neural tissue and confirmed its electrical activity after cryopreservation.
This week, they shared their breakthrough and ambition to make reversible human cryopreservation a reality — today, get the world's first inside
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Curious about building in bio and maximizing your impact on human health?
This Tuesday, Aug 9th, join
@LauraDeming
and
@AlexJColville
from 7-9 pm for a Q&A in San Francisco on How to Found a Longevity Biotech. Space is limited, RSVP at !
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@RuxandraTesloi1
@gladyshev_lab
@EleanorSheekey
For this reason I refuse to stop shouting from the rooftops that we need more people studying all aspects of germline rejuvenation. Can't assume yamanaka factors recapitulate this process. I predict this will be some of this highest impact work of the field in next 10+ years.
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I dare you to find another VC fund that's been featured on a graduation cap
🎓 Plan after graduation: build now, age later
Also, axolotls rule the world!
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This is a tour de force entry point for new faces to the translational side of the aging field. Without a doubt this is the new go-to resource. This is going to help so many people.
Introducing: The Longevity Biotech Landscape.
An overview of all different scientific approaches as well as unexplored strategies in the field.
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While the aging field has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, this growth pales in comparison to that of the next two decades. The biggest bottleneck to unlock and accelerate this growth is talent.
AFAR is
#hiring
an experienced Manager to oversee a new Longevity Undergraduate Program, to create a network of programs inspiring college students to pursue
#careers
in
#agingresearch
. Learn more and apply today:
#NGOjob
#jobseekers
#jobalert
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Has this week felt like an entire year?
Did you ruin a pair or two of shoes this week in the rain?
Do you have more business cards in your pocket than firing neurons in your brain?
Do you now need another holiday break?
Ask your doctor cause you may be suffering from JPM24
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1) If you havent been paying attention to
@thedojohouse
, now is the time🤯
2) thx to every1 in Boston who came to our longevity mixer!! massive turnout (~200 ppl signed up). one of the higher quality bar longevity meetups I've seen. keep your 👀 peeled for round 2 in a few months
Thank you everyone for coming out to join
@AlexJColville
@LauraDeming
@leovandendaele
for a night of brainstorming in longevity & drinks!
Shoutout to
@MIT_Innovation
for letting us use the beautiful space!
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The brain is our entire existence, individuality, and memory. At its best, it’s the most valuable substance in the universe. At its worst (disease and end-stages of aging) it can be debilitating and a prison. We were frustrated by the lack of an available ambitious plan to
Delighted to announce the release of the Amaranth Foundation's latest white paper on combating brain aging (and 🧵👇):
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The new best framework for those looking to learn more about the longevity field just dropped.
“What we wish we knew entering the aging field”
A masterpiece 6 months in the making by
@maggie_1i
How do we move from lab to clinic for an aging intervention in *this* decade?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question and created a framework dubbed the longevity funnel framework (LFF) to answer it:
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New Impetus round 🚨🚨🚨“Thematically, the upcoming round will be open-ended, with a focus on high-risk high-reward kind of aging science” 🥹 when will other science funders catch on… Special callouts in this round for:
Excited to announce that funding moonshot aging science was *not* a zero-interest rate phenomena and
@impetusgrants
just closed a $10M fundraise (from
@RosenkranzBlog
&
@hevolution_f
) to enable more scientific projects in lifespan space.
Read on the next round and what we are
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TLDR: Altos has been working on therapeutics targeting inflammation by inhibiting retrotransposons to potentially treat progeria and more. IMO this is great news as many in the longevity field have wondered how directly Altos would target aging biology. Bullish
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@LauraDeming
@age1vc
Laura has had an outsized impact bringing longevity biotech from an unknown field to a blossoming space. age1 is here to further accelerate this inflection point to achieve approved therapies to keep healthy people healthy. Check out our vision: .
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Another step forward into the future of CRISPR screens towards in vivo (a step beyond all the screens transplanting tumors). Next stop: inducible perturbation HSC screen in vivo? HSC transplant, wait for immune system reconstitution, then cell type-specific perturbation induction
Excited to share our work on in vivo hematopoietic stem cell CRISPR screens to study hematopoiesis and the aging immune system in the
@wysscoray
lab w/
@awilkinsongroup
at Oxford & Nakauchi lab at Stanford!
Find our screen data at
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The future age1 wants to create is one with effective and safe moonshot interventions, approved for human use. We focus on interventions which:
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@ThomasRando
@BrunetLab
@wysscoray
Forever indebted to
@davidasinclair
for offering to an undergrad who "chased him down in a parking lot" a spot in his lab. 🥲
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"
@PDSoros
program honors the contributions of immigrants and children of immigrants to the US. Each year, we invest in 30 New Americans who are poised to make significant contributions to US society, culture or their academic field"
Kat is a force of nature. Super well deserved,
Extremely grateful to be chosen as a 2023
@PDSoros
Fellow!!!
Thank you to my amazing science mentors across career stages!
@MIT
(
@mitbrainandcog
+
@WhiteheadInst
):
@Hrvatin_Sinisa
/
@JSWLab
/
@YuanchengLu
/
@HeatherKPhD
@Harvard
:
@_emmarosewest
/Connie Cepko
@Cornell
:
@CornellBirds
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“If we solve aging, we may well solve our emerging underpopulation crisis.
And we have, I will suggest, an ethical imperative to do both — even though tackling aging itself as a medical problem remains a contrarian idea.”
Want to live to 150? The world needs more humans.
Believe it or not, we have an underpopulation problem to solve — and there’s good reason to believe aging isn’t inevitable.
TLDR:
1. More humans = more ideas = more resources.
2. Solve aging = solve most
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SF NIGHTLIFE IS BACK
*Picture taken at 10pm on a Friday night.*
Recently piloted a ~ new type of longevity journal club ~ on the topic of chemical reprogramming with an emphasis on brainstorming next steps, next experiments, next essential findings. It was beautiful! A change of pace from many journal clubs, which...
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For those new to the story of Altos, it is one of the most unusual for profit companies ever. Launched over 2y ago, it was started with $3B, paying professors over $1M/year to leave academia to pursue rejuvenation tech
SCOOP: An insanely well-funded company called Altos Labs is going after "rejuvenation" technology.
Yamanaka factors. Epigenetic clocks. CRISPR.
Offering academics $1 million salaries and more.
Investor rumor mill: Milner, Bezos, ARCH. Musk?
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Happy 48th anniversary of Genentech's founding to all those who celebrate.
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1) Emphasizing remaining lifespan as opposed to median lifespan is uncommon. The paper demonstrated a ~7% increase in median lifespan. In the context of longevity interventions, this effect size is very small. Esp when we look at this supplemental figure w/o a shortened x-axis:
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@ellenjdasilva
Just the loudest, most of the pioneers and ones moving the field forward are women. Cynthia Kenyon,
@BrunetLab
, Joan Mannick,
@jenngarrison
,
@ashleyz413
,
@celinehalioua
,
@JoanneZPeng
, Judy Campisi,
@DaisyRobinton
, Elizabeth Blackburn,
@RaianyRomanni
, way too many to list
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Background: I started working on reprogramming + aging back in 2016 during my PhD. At that time, a new paper came out from
@aocampox
in the Belmonte Lab
@salkinstitute
that flipped the world on its head. It took the broader field 2-3 years to realize it.
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2) The study is likely grossly underpowered at 20 mice per group, esp for small effect size. Underpowered studies can lead to a low positive predictive value.
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They demonstrated that if you expressed the factors continuously, mice die of teratomas; but if you express them transiently (2d on, 5 d off) you can extend lifespan dramatically by about 33% in a genetic mouse model of progeria and ameliorate aspects of aging in wildtype mice.
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First of all - what the heck is LINE-1 (L1 for short)? It’s a virus-like repetitive element of DNA. ~15-20% of human DNA is L1. It’s been called “junk DNA” and the “dark genome” for years. But has been increasingly recognized for its importance.
~20% of human DNA is L1. This virus-like element is part of the ‘dark genome’: repetitive DNA that was called ‘junk DNA’ for years but is increasingly recognized to be important in human biology. While we understand broadly how L1 works, the details have remained mysterious.
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Posts that will age well.
🚀 Introducing our 2023 Time Fellows! These trailblazers are gearing up to redefine the future of aging research. Exciting times ahead as they embark on this transformative journey! Check out the faces behind the brilliance. 🌟
#TimeInitiative
#aging
#agingbiology
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a very cool
@Nature
paper by
@Y_Ryan_Lu
@DavidSinclair
demonstrating the ability of only 3 of the four OSK factors to promote axon regeneration after injury… including restoring vision!
My PhD work from
@davidasinclair
lab with our amazing collaborators has come out today, indicating that in vivo reprogramming can recover the youthful epigenetic information within injured or aged cells and allow optic nerve regeneration and vision restoration. Feeling blessed!
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@stuartacook1
For those curious at how this stacks up versus other major aging interventions, it's nearly off the charts!!
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@ThomasRando
@BrunetLab
@wysscoray
@davidasinclair
It’s now my turn to give others the insane opportunity I was given. Time to support and enable the next generation of talent in longevity biotech.
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7) Exciting times for the aging field!! Robust, high n size lifespan studies showing dramatic effects are some of the rarest and most impactful papers. It's time we finally get some robust studies evaluating interventions targeting aging started in humans.
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Proud to announce our new work thanks to my incredible mentor
@Thomas_Rando
and our colleagues from the Rando lab (special shoutout to co-first author Jie-Yu Liu who is now at
@OchreBio
!).
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This is a valid point to keep in mind. In contrast, in US cancer is the 2nd leading cause of death at roughly 30% of deaths (h/t
@OurWorldInData
):
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Funny enough, one of the compounds I tested yielded unusually promising results for cellular health + C. elegan lifespan extension.
When I tried to find out why the compound wasn’t pursued more, one of the explanations given to me was that pharma lobbyists worked against it.
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The big claim: “extend the median remaining lifespan by 109% over WT controls”. I’d agree that this is exciting, the first to see an extension in wildtype. However, there are caveats that damper my excitement: 1) low n size, 2) low effect size, and 3) small # of phenotypes.
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Tomorrow night, come hang! 🥳
@NucleateDojo
has been one of the most highly enriched/cracked pools of talent you can find. Special group.
Hosting a summer mixer in SF with
@age1vc
! If you're interested in biotech, join us on Friday Aug. 9th @ 6:00PM.
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Excited to moderate this session with the great
@vivnat
on March 16th in SF! What should we ask
@LauraDeming
and
@jacobkimmel
?
Want to live to be 200?*
Join us on March 16th for a speaker panel exploring the promise and challenges of the longevity field with
@LauraDeming
, Partner at the Longevity Fund, &
@jacobkimmel
, Head of Research
@newlimit
.
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Has anyone ever seen a role like this (Scientific Chief of Staff)? Incredibly cool opp to work with
@MartinBJensen
Please RT!
Work directly with me
@GordianBio
as our Scientific Chief of Staff & be part of everything it takes to run a growing biotech.
You'll have wide responsibilities, owning projects and culture improvements, organizing our teamwork, and helping me set the company strategy.
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2) Robustness: like the IL-11
@Nature
paper by
@stuartacook1
, this study features a very impressive n size and appears quite robust. n size of ~100 per group for females and 120 for males. Limitation here, unlike w/ IL-11, the controls are short-lived
OKAY I MISSED A BIG ONE. Out today in
@Nature
"Treatment with anti-IL-11 from 75 weeks of age until death extends the median lifespan of male mice by 22.5% and of female mice by 25%" 🤯
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We can’t make this vision a reality without you. The field just won’t move fast enough. We need the world’s most ambitious founders as well as the best scientists, operators, creatives, and investors.
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4) Safety: some specific safety signals in the study. Like previous studies, this paper showed rapamycin causes testicular degeneration in males. May be able to get around this in humans based on dose/reversibility
@RapaNews
. Also showed liver lipidosis in
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Talent is the biggest bottleneck of the aging field.
@time_initiative
in supporting, catalyzing, connecting, and giving opportunity to exceptional talent can do things that corporations, government, and academia can not!! Undergrads take note 👀
Introducing the Time Initiative with
@AFARorg
! We’re empowering
#undergraduate
leaders in
#aging
#research
. Time is our most valuable resource, so let's create a future where we can all live healthier, longer. Learn more at
#geroscience
#healthspan
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Preach!!! I think sending someone ~only~ the hallmarks of aging paper without additional context is one of the most harmful ways to bring someone into the aging field. I tell everyone I can to read this perspective
Scientists studying aging r often too unidimensional in thinking—is aging damage, programmed, reversible, caused by (insert fav hallmark)? These questions all assume aging is just 1 thing, which it clearly isn’t. It’s a complex multifactorial phenom that we’ve happened to label.
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A classic paper that I've reproduced: viable & functional skeletal muscle cells from humans >2 weeks post-mortem . This new Yale work opens up so many difficult important questions about defs of dead & reversibility of death. Congrats Z and Nenad!!
By any medical or legal definition, the pigs were dead. Until scientists got their hearts beating again.
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5) Sex differences: females seemingly benefited much more than males. Rapa has an interesting history of sex-specific effects. In Harrison et al 2009, female mice benefited slightly more (14% LE vs 9% in males). In the highest dose + largest lifespan...
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Almost always get asked how somebody can build a biotech working on aging if the FDA won’t recognize aging as an endpoint. Last week,
@loyalfordogs
and
@celinehalioua
forever put that question to rest. Drug dev won’t ever be the same.
Last week, Loyal received what is likely the FIRST ever FDA blessing for a clinical study to test whether an aging drug extends lifespan & healthspan
In FDA parlance - "protocol concurrence"
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Today I’m also remembering Dr. Campisi for her warmth, caring, and ability to crack a joke in an academic world that can be overly serious and less welcoming. This is one of my favorite clips of her, where she casually drops the funniest quote about her mortality.
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