Dr. Daisy Robinton, co-founder and CEO of Oviva Therapeutics, discusses the company's innovative approach to improving women's healthspan by targeting the biology of ovarian aging. Motivated by her personal experiences and the realization that female physiology is underserved by research and medicine, Daisy outlines how menopause is a key inflection point in the acceleration of aging in women. She explains the central role of anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) in regulating ovarian function and fertility. Oviva's lead program, a recombinant enhanced AMH protein, aims to improve IVF outcomes by synch ..read more

Dr. Noah Davidsohn, co-founder and CSO of Rejuvenate Bio, discusses the company's innovative work using gene therapies to treat age-related diseases in dogs and humans. In his conversation with host Chris Patil, he explains his recent groundbreaking study showing that partial cellular reprogramming with Yamanaka factors extended lifespan and healthspan in very old mice. Noah then outlines Rejuvenate's clinical pipeline, including targeting longevity pathways like FGF-21 for heart disease and combining TGF-beta inhibition with klotho for osteoarthritis. By choosing secreted factors deliverable ..read more

30 Years of Aging Biology: A Pioneer’s Perspective (Cynthia Kenyon - VP Aging Biology, Calico Labs) Dr. Cynthia Kenyon reflects on the evolution of the longevity field over the 30 years since the publication of her groundbreaking paper, “A C. elegans mutant that lives twice as long as wild type,” a genetic analysis of one of the first single-gene mutations to extend lifespan in the worm. She recounts the initial excitement and skepticism around the idea of a pathway that regulates aging, and subsequent validation of this and related ideas in a wide range of model organisms. She also discusses ..read more

Dr. Jamie Justice is Executive Director of the newly launched XPRIZE Healthspan, a $101 M international competition to accelerate therapeutics targeting aging biology. In conversation with host Chris Patil, Dr. Justice outlines the motivation, structure, and timeline of the prize, as well as how teams can get involved. She also explains unique aspects of this prize, including the public commentary period, how existing trials can be adapted for competition, functional endpoints, and judging criteria. She also conveys why coordination is needed to overcome barriers and drive investment in longev ..read more

Dr. Coleen Murphy is a prominent aging researcher and author of the upcoming book “How We Age: The Science of Longevity” from Princeton University Press. In this wide-ranging discussion, Coleen provides insights into her motivation for writing this book, key topics covered, and her unique perspective on the field.  Key ideas: Addressing ethical concerns about studying aging and longevity Defining aging conceptually and how metrics like lifespan vs. healthspan are measured Using genetics, transcriptomics and other tools to understand molecular changes in aging The prominent role of reprod ..read more

Dr. Nicholas Hertz is the co-founder and former CSO of Mitokinin, a biotech company developing therapies targeting damaged mitochondria in neurodegenerative disease. Mitokinin was recently acquired by pharmaceutical giant AbbVie. In this episode, Nick recounts the journey from academic research on PINK1 biology to founding a startup and advancing a clinical candidate. He provides insights into the drug discovery process, optimizing lead compounds, translating basic findings into therapies, and partnering with big pharma. Nick also shares lessons learned along the way about focusing on robust s ..read more

Dr. Alex Colville is the co-founder and General Partner of Age1 Ventures, a recently launched VC firm focused on funding contrarian, founder-led biotech companies aiming to extend healthy human lifespan. In this episode, Alex outlines Age1's thesis of identifying and empowering talented founders with ambitious visions for the longevity field. He shares his own journey to VC, including early interests in aging science and entrepreneurship. Alex provides an inside look at Age1's approach to community building, sourcing high-potential founders, investing at the pre-seed/seed stage, and supporting ..read more

Dr. Carolina Reis Oliveira and Dr. Alessandra Zonari are the co-founders of OneSkin, a company developing science-backed skincare products to reverse skin aging at the cellular level. In this episode, Carolina and Alessandra tell host Dr. Chris Patil how OneSkin is leveraging recent advances in longevity science to create novel peptides that target senescent cells and inflammation in aged skin. Their lead ingredient, OS-1, is a peptide capable of reducing biological age and senescence burden in human skin models.They explain their rigorous discovery process, including screening peptide librari ..read more

Dr. Felix Wong is a co-founder of Integrated Biosciences, an early-stage biotech company developing next-generation therapeutics for cellular rejuvenation. He is also a postdoc at MIT and the Broad Institute and was a lead author on a recent Nature Aging paper describing the use of graph neural networks to discover new senolytic compounds. In this episode, Felix and host Chris Patil have an in-depth discussion about using machine learning to accelerate drug discovery, specifically to target cellular senescence. They explore how graph neural networks were trained on screening data to evaluate l ..read more

Joan Mannick, CEO and co-Founder of Tornado Therapeutics, joins the podcast to discuss her company’s exciting mission of developing a new generation of rapalog compounds specifically targeting the TORC1 complex. Rapalogs are analogs of the natural compound rapamycin, which has been shown to extend lifespan and healthspan in animal models by inhibiting the TOR pathway. However, rapamycin has limitations that have prevented its widespread clinical use for aging-related conditions. Tornado aims to overcome these limitations by developing a portfolio of novel rapalogs licensed from Novartis, which ..read more