yeah we are kicking the can down the road but that’s the point you know life is wonderful and the more times we kick the can down the road the more life and wonder we have and so yeah I that’s what it is I don’t think that we’re going to be able to Kick the Can down the road for in an infinite number of years based on technology that I can foresee In Our Lifetime now I could be wrong cuz I didn’t for see reprogramming uh as effective as it has become and age reversal so it never say never but given my viewpoint right now I think that 150 is achievable in many of our lifespans but not immortality and a massive transformative purpose is what you’re telling the world it’s like this is who I am this is what I’m going to do this is the dent I’m going to make in the universe hey everybody welcome back to another episodes of mindsets and moonshots uh my name is Nick I’m Peter’s producer and uh we have today here Peter and David hey guys how are you hey Nick
[00:01:01] hey Nick cool so uh we have fielded hundreds of phenomenal questions over the course of the past day from both David and pet David and Peter’s Twitter and I’m going to be the lucky one uh Fielding through them and picking and popping so let’s start off with some fun ones uh David I’m going to direct this one at you fans want to know why has David not had a podcast since February ah well I am writing my second book I’m editing a paper that’s going to come out in uh a big Journal that’s going to be high impact uh and I’m working on making my podcast even better uh better produced and so trust me it’s coming uh I know that there’s a lot of demand for it and I thank everyone for their patience cool that’s a fair answer um all right let’s dive into one that we had a bunch of and I’ll read it verbatim this one is from Tony and Megan they
[00:02:01] asked and I’m going to ask it to both Peter and David um why is it taking so freaking long to have meaningful longevity therapies come to Market I feel like we’re not making any meaningful Headway and we’re stuck taking supplements that give us 5 to 10 years if we’re lucky where are the breakthroughs when are they coming well some of them are already here uh in my view we’ve got uh some drugs already metform and repy that I strongly believe can slow down aspects of Aging so we already have uh some technology it’s not evenly distributed it’s not available to everybody because most doctors are unaware or unwilling to prescribe these medicines to people who are healthy uh but the data looks good now what about the new medicines that are in development well one of them that I’m developing actually a few of them at Metro biotech a spin out from my lab from 10 years ago uh is pretty Advanced we’re actually in in phase two studies
[00:03:00] we’ve had some positive data we’re looking to publish now we’ve written up the manuscript um and so that is a a a study and a company that looks at NAD boosters for pharmaceutical use for diseases of aging and that one if all all goes well it’s uh probably 2 to three years away so that’s uh that’s the good news also reprogramming of the eye to cure blindness which we did in mice a couple years ago we’re in non-human primates and that that could go into to humans as soon as next year now the the question is why uh isn’t it quicker well it’s because drugs are hard super hard you know what industry can spend $400 500 million and still fail not that many and that’s what it’s like to develop drugs and there’s a lot of safety and efficacy that needs to go into these products thanks to the oversight of the FDA here in the US and other countries under different offices and it’s there’s a high high hurdle rightly so so we
[00:04:00] don’t want something that doesn’t work or can harm people getting on the market but to get over that hurdle takes time and a lot of money that’s a fair answer Peter I’d love your take and in your take I want to include your opposing somewhat opposing thoughts to David on how you feel about the FDA and bureaucracy well so listen the the reality is what we’re talking about is a radical departure from traditional medicine medicine has been you know you go to we’ve all come to expect we go or a doctor and we go for our once a year physical if we’re lucky and that doctor will listen to your lungs your heart and and it’s expected you know old age is something we come to expect and we don’t fight against it uh we expect it we try and do a gentle Landing if you would uh and the FDA is an organization built around safety what I mean by that is they will value the lives lost if they
[00:05:00] approve a drug that kills people those lives are much more valuable than all the lives lost by not approving a drug um it’s just the way it is today and so uh until the science is Rock Solid um they’re going to be hesitant to approve something and it takes a huge amount of capital Investments billions of dollars and sometimes Decades of time um the reality is you know even this the world of stem cells um stem cells are we know that we exhaust our stem cell population uh that when we’re young we have uh you know 100x a THX number of stem cells in different uh different pockets of the body from uh uh from fat to muscle to neural stem cells and they reduce and we can supplement our stem cells um and but today you have to go outside the United States to do that because the science isn’t there to have proven its efficacy and safety yet and
[00:06:01] we’re going to get there but uh until it’s you know rock solid um you’re going to a different jurisdiction to get those treatments it takes time to be available what we saw I remember I was in uh Richard Mulligan’s lab uh David back in in the 80s doing uh early gene therapy work and gene therapy was was imagined back then to be an extraordinary technology and it was but when it was first applied to the first patients it caused the death of a number of children and it stopped the entire field for decades um so people are cautious about taking shortcuts David do you have any push back there I mean your interfacing with the FD over the years is probably more than most people ever experienced in a lifetime giving your career are are you friend and yeah I I have to find the way to word this so excuse the way I’m wording it it are you
[00:07:00] friends of the FDA in the sense that you’re happy with how they work does it frustrate you at times that they move slow uh are you in alignment with Peter that there is a increase or there should be an increase in speed of how they approve things coming up or what’s your take uh well the FDA was surprisingly receptive um to the idea that aging can be treated with a medicine and they are still of the opinion that if we can show that aging is uh slow with with a treatment that they would strongly consider approving that medicine for the treatment of aging and I I didn’t realize that that was true but what the individuals at the FDA the human beings in this bureaucracy as it is um have to deal with a big organization with lots of rules and procedures and those rules dictate how quickly we can move and their mandate is to protect the public
[00:08:00] so that there’s not as much incentive to to get a drug on the market as there is to protect them and that does lead to this being rather a slow process that’s for sure now what I would love is if there was increased public opinion uh pressure um from all places from politicians from Grassroots to increase the dialogue and help the FDA find a way to make it E easier for us to get a drug on the market that’s based on Aging research right now we cannot make a drug for aging because aging isn’t a medical condition um if it were we’d have a lot more investment and a lot uh more success I you know David one thing I hope for in the future is a right to try uh strategy right in other words I almost call it an accredited patient program where if as a patient as a subject I get permission from my
[00:09:01] physician my husband my wife my kids whatever that I want to try a treatment that isn’t FDA approved but you know I’ve got this disease called Aging and I want to try this even if it’s you know to be a subject uh I think Reinventing how we do this now we do have investigational new drugs and we do have you know experimental protocols and so forth but how do we we make it um more agile in that pet I love that idea that that you wouldn’t be able to just go online and order up an experimental drug right that’s that’s too free because there could be accidents um and there’s maybe abuse of that system for monetary reasons that said if there were a certification whether it’s an MD or something an MD can get that would allow the use of experimental drugs right now that is possible but it’s not widely used it’s generally frowned upon um if was more widely available if you have a
[00:10:01] terminal disease or something that um doesn’t have any current cure why not try something that is at least already shown in Phase One to be safe go for yes exactly in fact David Fagen bomb I know if you know David he he’s uh uh he cured his or didn’t cure he’s treating his castleman’s disease using Rapa and so there you know the numbers are interesting right there are 3,000 FDA approved drugs and there are 12,000 diseases and his work right now is saying can we can we fund looking at which of those 3,000 drugs might have a dual use for the 9,000 diseases that don’t have a treatment right they’ve already they’re already on the market they’re already in production they’re already shown to be safe in in humans um and so it’s a rather than developing a Bru treatment so uh his his efforts called uh called uh uh every cure and it’s uh he just
[00:11:01] announced it at the Clinton Global initiative a couple of weeks back David and Peter what is your personal preference to when you feel comfortable enough to try something David you probably have a lot of exposure to this because you’re constantly testing things in the lab when do you say okay you know what I’m good enough to uh put myself on the line here and Peter likewise I’d like to know for you uh I consider myself a chief guinea pig for a lot of uh of what’s out there uh Tony Robbins who’s a m dear mutual friend of both of ours and I think about that all the time it’s like huh interesting so um listen if it’s I’m probably not likely to be the first human ever to take something but I will be an early user of it let’s leave it at that yeah I’m the same I I I’m an an experimental I’m a scientist I also feel that if I’m going to be talking about something thing I need to have
[00:12:00] experienced it myself I would really never talk about something unless i’ I’d tried something and so I never recommend anything I’m not even an MD I’m a PhD but I will talk about my own experience um in a way that will allow others to think about it themselves I do find same yeah I think I think it’s important I think it’s important uh as we’re as we are speaking about this field and what’s becoming available uh to to explain either that it’s something I do do or the reason I haven’t right and actually a New York Times article was written about my lab and me and they said uh um I think it was POs to the effect of well David you’re conflicted because you’re studying this molecule in the lab and you’re taking it aren’t you going to be biased and if there’s something bad you’ll hide it and I’m I’m thinking to myself I want to be the first person in
[00:13:00] the world to know that there’s something wrong with this molecule cuz my father’s taking it I’m taking it and I will tell the whole world to stop taking it if I see something and I want to be that person to find it ASAP so it’s actually it’s it’s flipped is that I’m looking for problems with these treatments CU if I’m taking them or I tried them I need to know if there’s a problem and so you know you can trust me that you’ll hear from me first if there is something that’s negative yeah uh I’m I met for I’ve just started rapas in 5 milligrams for my own body weight and I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of Physicians about it and felt that the you know it’s always a risk reward situation and uh I just felt like at this point the reward side was higher than the risk oh for sure and the older you get um the more so but we we tend to un underestimate the risk of Aging we don’t think about it as much as we should aging is really really risky in fact we
[00:14:00] it’s known it’s known to cause death yes it runs in my family David do you mind if I cut an I build off of that for a moment so one of the questions that came in was uh let me find it here um it was uh are we effectively I’m going to shorten what they said but are we effectively just kicking the can of dying here and are we just prolonging it say 120 500 years whatever the case may be um or or is the proposition that we’re going to live forever and um what’s your take and Peter what’s your take uh all right uh yeah we are kicking the can down the road but that’s the point you life is wonderful and the more times we kick the can down the road the more life and wonder we have and so yeah I that’s what it is I don’t think that we’re going to be able to Kick the Can down the road for an infinite number of years based on technology that I can foresee In Our
[00:15:00] Lifetime now I could be wrong because I didn’t foresee reprogramming uh as effective as it has become and age reversal so i’ Never Say Never but given my viewpoint right now I think that 150 is achievable in many of our lifespans but not immortality Peter yeah so it most definitely kicking the can down the road the analogy is and I I was you know on a vacation with my family and we’re having so much a fun time it’s like let’s stay an extra week you know if if you’re enjoying life uh you know adding decades to it but let’s not forget we’re in the steepest part of the exponential curve uh you know in terms of what’s coming in Ai and Robotics and Quantum computation that’s that’s just on the edge of uh of our capabilities so yeah I may not want this Mortal body uh five you know not five 50 years from now I may want a upgraded body but the idea of
[00:16:01] being able to see my grandchildren my great-grandchildren to go to the moon go to Mars to see what happens next um is extraordinary I don’t you know Ray cwell talks about the singularity right the point at which the speed of technological change is so rapid that we’re unable to predict what’s next and that number is Circa you know the early 2040s let’s not forget that’s 20 years from now now I mean it’s not like 100 years it’s 20 years from now so uh part of what we’re talking about is intercepting the technologies that will give us longevity escape velocity but beyond that the technologies that will allow us to connect our minds to the cloud maybe it’s uploading ourselves um I’m not a huge fan of freezing myself are you David um yeah so I I definitely want to get immortality or at least extreme l ity is that a real thing like
[00:17:00] an Austin to freezing yourself thing that’s yeah cryonics is the technology it’s the notion that if I freeze myself and I don’t rupture the cells and there are ways to do that that hopefully technology super advanced technology you know a 100 or thousand years from now will be able to bring me back and restate my neural structures and my memories and so forth but that’s that’s a subject for another conversation hold on I have a question on this David uh have you ever visited or Peter if you guys ever this is a very interesting question visited a facility where people are Frozen I mean is this a I I I I thought that this was all hear say uh I have not either have I but there are a number of them uh and people I mean the first person I just saw an article about this the first person Frozen uh was about 50 years ago and there are companies today that uh you’ll wear a bracelet and um at the moment of death uh when your body when your your brain
[00:18:01] uh function ceases they will come in uh and they’ll pull out your blood replace it with effectively an antifreeze and uh and freeze you and you can have the choice of freezing your entire body or coughing off your head and just freezing your head because it takes less energy to do that it it may actually work um I didn’t think it would but actually given that we can now reset the age of cells I can imagine that you can quickly un freeze a person and get their C to begin the Rejuvenation process that we seem to be able to control now and uh yeah so I think it I I wouldn’t do it myself at least currently uh but I think that it’s not as crazy as it once seemed um but I I would rather stay alive by being alive and uh I think the Technologies to do that are increasingly here it’s it’s a it’s a fun subject to think about but I’d rather put my energy and focus into extending the health the human lifespan you know we Peter and I
[00:19:00] are very much into democratizing Technologies and and cry onx is not going to be for everybody it’s a very small few PE number of people that can afford this so that’s again not a good reason to focus our energies on those kind of Technologies I have a lot of deep appreciation for that answer I have a great one I want to end it with but uh Peter this one was directed at you uh somebody wanted an update on I didn’t even know if this is public yet the age reversal prize and I’m not sure if David you know about the age reversal xise that Peter has but obviously and let me just cue this up for everybody listening David’s efforts are substantially uh documented realized and and and very public right now he he’s in my opinion the leading World expert on on anti-aging at the moment and um you know Peter I think that you’re now going to actively join this fight through one of your efforts um do you want to share how uh yeah sure and David is is very much involved uh he and George Church I uh are my co conspirators uh if I would are
[00:20:00] scientific co-chairs of a $101 million age reversal ex prise uh and the question we’ve asked I mean we’ve been talking about the idea is could we do and it’s not launched yet to be very clear we’re majority funded uh David and I have been having a conversation every uh every few days on the rule sets and getting them really honed in I hope to launch in the early part of 2023 but uh we talked early on about a longevity prize but the problem with the longevity prize like can you add 30 healthy years in a person’s life which we will uh is you have to wait 30 years to see if you have a winner but can you in fact reverse aging in someone in this case the rules we’re thinking about is can you give a therapeutic that lasts for less than a year but reverses biological age uh by 20 years or more David uh do you want want to add your thoughts there yeah it the goal is to
[00:21:02] inspire companies and Labs individuals to work on methods to safely reverse aging in multiple tissues and organs to rejuvenate the body and make it function better and uh and this kind of prize money will be a huge incentive um I think it’s going to have a big impact on on the field and uh and drive innovation in the same way other X prises have done so and so I’m super happy to be involved we’re looking at you know we’re trying to decide what what the focus will be I I you know Dave and I are honing in on on cognition on muscle on skin on immune system I mean these are the things that as you age you want to look good you want to move well you want to think clearly you want to be able to have a good immunity in a in a world of covid and and influenza um but you know this is about getting the smartest people on the planet to focus on one of the biggest problems is one of the biggest Grand challenges on the planet which is
[00:22:01] extending the healthy Health span and David on a previous episode you mentioned the economic impact for adding one healthy year on a person’s life what was that number again it was staggering well for the us alone it’s $86 trillion in the long run of doing that so so David uh uh where should people go to find you well I’m I’m active on social media um so find updated news there uh my podcast is still available and I’m working on season 2 uh and that’s on all podcast Outlets uh my book I think a lot of people got inspired by um and I was inspired by yours too Peter my book is called life span why we age and why we don’t have to and I didn’t get to talk a lot about what I do on my in my daily life which supplements and that kind of thing but that is outlined in large part on page 304 of lifespan so check that out um that’s the cheat
[00:23:00] sheet but please do read the science as well and all of the future that’s coming so that’s where to find me um that is a good spot other than that um I’ll be I’m working on a on a TV show that uh I’ll let you know how that goes I do want to be able show people the insides of our bodies and how we work and how to improve our bodies in our daily lives in a way that no show has ever done before so stay tuned for that too Nick do you have a last question for us I do and I’m going to direct it at David and then Peter we we’ll have you recorded on this too David the question that came in I thought it was novel is uh are you happy if so why and was there ever a point in your life in which you weren’t and what did you do because uh I like this because a lot of your research is pending on this fulcrum of whether or not people can resolve that okay uh am I always happy no um most days I’m happy because I’m doing something that I dreamed of doing and I’m fulfilled but I
[00:24:02] have down days I have days where I get attacked by large farmer by colleagues uh I’ve learned to have a thicker skin so I don’t get full-blown depression but it’s still it’s still upsetting uh but I’ve learned to trust in myself and be resilient and get up um I find that having teenage kids is the most challenging thing in life and I have three of those and I’m still trying to be a great dad uh so I’m a struggling vegan and a struggling teenage dad so that that’s who I am outside of research David thanks for being on the show um let us know what you think rate review and give us a follow find David across all socials he’s very active and I think um we’re just really blessed to have had him Peter do you want to share any closing notes David uh it’s a truly a pleasure to call you a friend a co-collaborator co-conspirator on this journey we’re ahead of uh and have a beautiful day pal yeah you
[00:25:01] too it’s great to have you as a co-pilot on on this final frontier of biology appreciate yeah appreciate you too take care [Music] pal