#223 Anti-Aging Gene Therapy - Liz Parish

Liz Parish (0:00)

Here's the problem. It's aging. Aging cells cause Alzheimer's to actually come to fruition.

Then we look at the disease that has a multitude of symptoms. And then finally, we look at beta amyloid plaques. And when you're trying to create a drug for that, you're basically just trying to slow a disease. But if you go up the level to aging, and you treat aging, you're not only keeping people from getting Alzheimer's, you're keeping them from getting cancer and heart disease.

Siim Land (0:31)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land, and our guest today is Liz Parish. Liz is the founder and CEO of BioViva, which is a company committed to extending human lifespan, using techniques such as gene and cell technologies. Liz Parish became the first person worldwide to take dual gene therapies for treating aging.

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Head over to the show notes of this episode at siimland.com forward slash 223 to get a link for a 10 percent discount of magnesium breakthrough. That's siimland.com forward slash 223 Liz, welcome to the show.

Liz Parish (1:43)

Thank you for having me.

Siim Land (1:44)

Yeah, it's very, I think a lot of people are interested in gene therapy or it's a very cutting-edge thing and not a lot of people are not aware of what it is. So maybe let's maybe start off like what kind of a gene therapy are you involved with?

Liz Parish (2:01)

So just to give people a little bit of background of what gene therapy is, gene therapy is the removal or addition of a therapeutic gene that makes the organism healthier.

And so in our work, we look at genes for treating biological aging. So genes that make people younger and those exist. And so this is a really exciting time for people to get involved in the science behind that. So we look at the hallmarks of aging, the things that happen at the cellular level that make people old.

And we try to target the hallmarks of aging with therapeutic genes that reverse those hallmarks. So we might work with something like telomerase induction, telomeres are the ends of the chromosomes and they get shorter as you get older. And we have a technology that can lengthen those. But we also look at gene therapies that kind of blur the lines between physical enhancement and preventative medicine such as fullostatin, which is a gene therapy that will increase your muscle mass.

Siim Land (3:12)

Right.

Yeah, that's very sci-fi for a lot of people. And in very simplistic terms, it does make sense that you have these genes. And if you have different kinds of genes, then you express, or you have different outcomes in terms of health and longevity. Right.

Liz Parish (3:30)

So if you look at somebody who is like Hussein Bolt, who can run faster than most people on the planet, or you look at someone like maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger, who can build more muscle mass with less addition of maybe some stimulants to do that than the rest of the population. You're looking at genetic abnormal genetic construction.

SPEAKER_3 (3:59)

So, sorry, I just cannot talk this morning.

Liz Parish (4:02)

It's still early for me.

So, you're looking at people who are enhanced in comparison to the rest of the population. So, what we would like to do is kind of even the playing field, make these sort of genetic abilities available to everyone so that people are in generally better health. But also look at gene therapies that provide benefit for the biggest unmet need on the planet, which is biological aging. So, a lot of people think that gene therapy is like a technology that is very new, maybe hasn't been done in humans. But in fact, there's already five regulated past gene therapies for use in humans. And they're considered a one time treatment for a lifetime cure for some pretty serious deadly diseases.

So, we're just basically piggybacking on that ability of technology to be able to actually use it for the biggest unmet need, which is something more complex, such as biological aging. The difference between treating biological aging and the diseases that they're treating now are the diseases that are being treated right now with gene therapy are considered monogenic diseases, meaning it's a single gene mutation. One gene has a faulty character, and you can replace it with a healthy copy of a gene and have a therapeutic benefit. When we're looking at aging, we're looking at what's called a polygenic or multiple gene cascading effect that causes biological aging. And so it's more difficult. It will take us longer, but we have, yes, we have embarked on upon trying.