Biotech & Health Extension: 2021 Goals & Opportunities | Your Input Desired

1:19PM Jan 15, 2021

Speakers:

Allison Duettmann

Lynne

Joe

Sonia

Tom

Creon

Aubrey

Bernard

Larry

Nir

JJ

Keith

Keywords:

aging

people

sonia

group

clinical trials

community

question

biomarker

longevity

diseases

data

overhype

hoping

talking

meeting

fda

interested

government

progress

discuss

Everyone, welcome back to asides biotech and health extension Strategy Group. I'm really, really looking forward to spending as much time with you again this year even if virtually only for now. But this year, we hoping that you can pick it up where we left it off in 2020. But then also pick up the pace and and perhaps do a little bit more of action focused opportunities for collaboration. So I will quickly walk you through the program for this year. And we will be meeting every second Thursday of the month, as kind of like our touch point or anchor point. And then from there, we're going to spin out probably, hopefully, a lot of meetings that that I invite you to, to propose. So if you have specific focus areas that you want this room to explore, then please please let me know. And then I'll make sure they get on the program. So we're going to have a little bit more decentralized community oriented programming this year, and a little bit more action oriented programming to and which is what I'm going to hopefully show you now. Okay, so here you see our program for this year. And then nutshell, really, what we are going to do this year is for the first half of 2021, we're going to try to really evaluate and look at a few key areas for progress and aging. And then based on that, hopefully spin out a few ideas for progress that we can as a community tackle together. And that is what the second half of 2021 is reserved for. And so hopefully in the first one, we kind of get down and really what what the major multipliers for progress are. And in the second half, we hopefully try to make some progress and create some prototypes. And Alright, so I'll quickly walk you through the bits that you can expect. We are in the session right now you meeting every meeting group members and finding goals. And then in February that we're going to tackle industry blind spots are specifically what work is not being incentivized right now that could dramatically advance progress on aging in industry, then the same thing for research. And we're going to ask the same question here. But with different fantastic folks. In March, we're going to have a focus area on clinical trials and analytics by with James Kirkland, who was here last year, and with the meeting that many of you really liked, and when so hopefully, we can continue that discussion on what kind of needs to happen on clinical trials. Then in April, I'm super, super happy to have on all kransky here. And we'll be discussing what can happen on an NAIA level really, in an institutional perspective on biggest multipliers for change. In April, we're going to discuss biomarker development for FDA recognized diseases. And then we're going to start with specific focus areas where we thought that they may be particularly promising for for getting work done. And for actually making progress right now. One of them is platforms, tools and data analysis for long term progress on aging. One is biomarker and aging, crop development. And then one is biomarker standardization for progress on aging. And then we have a final one. And this is an August on regenerative medicine. So this is kind of like the program for the first half of the year. And then from there, we're going to spin out hopefully, a little bit more decentralized, can focus groups that may be focused on specific opportunities in each of those areas, and see if we can make progress on those. And then we gather again in December, and see and see if actually, if we're able to hack together and prototype. And so there's a few different things that I'm hoping for this group, and we need to achieve there. Of course, one of them is that, you know, we continue just forming a really strong ecosystem and community together. And the other one will be that we actually get a document together and based on our meetings, and I'll be taking care of that together with Bullock was here on specific areas that we think that other folks should also be be taking upon them. And so trying to form more of a wider coalition with specific action items for those people who are interested in helping, so that could be on all kinds of different levels, just trying to get together kind of like an action plan with different bullets that different folks could take on if they're interested in helping. And then lastly, of course, hoping to get together actually a few prototypes of what solutions could look

like if we got it right. And so for those and we may even have the opportunity to have some initial funding and definitely some community support and mentorship from folks in this group. And for that we're hoping to really kind of grow stronger And more of a focused, kind of like, you're more focused on the members here and how we can help each other grow and ecosystem really from the bottom up and on. And so for that we have a membership form that I'm hoping many of you will fill out. And, yeah, with that, and I thank you very, very much for joining again, I'm really, really happy to have Sonia Harrison here, Sonia will be discussing a few of the group goals that we may have today based on the form that I send out to many of you. So please, answer the phone and answer the form that will hopefully give us a little bit more of a restructured way of assessing how each and every one of us can help each other more. For now, I'm very happy to welcome Sonia to be discussing the questions that hopefully, I get to hear from you on the forum and that we're discussing next time. And from there, we're going to launch into a broader discussion on what kind of goals could this group take on in the next year? And then we'll get more specific in the next month. All right, thank you very much. And welcome, Sonia. It's really, really good to have you here. Yeah, so

I was I was just saying that, you know, we were really hoping to push this group a little bit further. And you know, not only talking about interesting things in the longevity space, but actually sort of having more of a targeted goal, where we say, Okay, let's identify some of the key bottlenecks and the key stumbling blocks in the longevity space. And let's spend part of the year doing that. And then let's spend the second part of the year trying to figure out if we can be nimble, I mean, this is an incredible group of people, if we can be nimble, and all get together and kind of think about how we might build teams to, to go after fixing those goals. And, you know, if we can build a team quickly, maybe we can also help get funding for it quickly. And maybe we can actually, you know, do something here, like actually have an impact. It's not just an interesting salon. And, you know, it is an interesting salon, and there's great talks and all of that, but it'd be nice to actually do something as well.

So we're working behind the scenes, we have bullet cues are no takers. So we have a collaborative note taking tool. And so we're hoping to hear from all of you. And he'll be tracking most of the things that we discuss in the group. And then hopefully, I mean, the minimum, I think, for me is really just having a really structured, kind of like, talk on which everything that you know, this community agrees on that will be valuable to do and will be valuable to take on by different actors is in one place, and a nice thing, like, in a nicely formatted way. So we can share that. Second thing. Of course, what Sonia said is, you know, actually are trying to get something together and trying to collaborate on projects together. And other specific areas, Sonia that you're particularly interested in looking into, or that you want to draw attention to already?

Uh, well, I, there's so many areas that I'm interested in, you know, recently, I've been spending a lot of time looking at the brain, which has not been an area of focus for me in the past, because it's been so difficult to get data on the brain. But there's been a lot of advances in brain technology recently, you know, optogenetics, of course, but brain organoid work and, and, and that kind of and other things related to it. So I think I think this is going to be the year of the brain. So I'm at which is about time where it's a it's about time for that, isn't it? Because we can't live very long if our brains not working well. So I'm interested in that. But I'm interested in in a lot of things. And I'm super excited to hear about one of our fellows who's both of them actually sound like they have a connection with AI because you know, one of the things I spend a lot of time listening to pitches I'm spending all my time these days investing in companies. And I'm mostly focused on longevity companies, but I get pitched on other companies too, because I'm you know, I'm working with some other VC firms and I'm, you know, all the non bio, every, I would almost say that every single non biotech tech company that I meet is using AI, but not every single biotech company I meet is using AI. And I think that needs to change because biotech needs the AI more than the non biotech companies. So I would like to see more of a focus on on that. I don't know what to extent we can have an impact on that but, but I think we should all be pushing for more. Not, not the end As a goal in itself, but, but it's a tool, and I think it's a tool that biotech has been slightly slower to pick up, at least recently. And it's, you know, it's hard.

Yeah. I'm glad that we have quite a strong program on that particular issue. But would you also say that there's particular things which people are maybe focusing on too much right now? Or like, do you think there's anything that's particularly overrated or underrated at the moment?

I've always felt that that, you know, maybe people will disagree with me, but I always felt that said analytics was really overrated. There was so much hype around it, and not much has really come of it, and maybe something will come of it still. And, you know, it's not that we should stop looking at analytics. But I feel like that was really, really overhyped. And, you know, I think there's, there's other areas to be focusing on as well. And, you know, and then that gets into the whole, you know, the whole debate, as you know, Aubrey often brings us up with the the, the split between the, you know, are you looking for a health extending technology that's systemic, or something, that's you're repairing things on a piece by piece basis kind of thing. And the analytics were systemic, and maybe that's why we all got excited about it, because it's like, wouldn't be nice if there was a silver bullet, and boom, you know, we just don't age as much anymore. So you can see,

we'll have a few. We have a few specific sessions as well and regenerative technologies later in the year. But I think I already have a question here from the audience, which is, what is your timeframe for results on anti aging therapeutics? What is it like,

what is my timeframe as an investor or me, you know, as an investor, I have to make money, right? Yes, I am. I'm not. I'm not investing in companies that are better research projects, or at least I'm trying not to do that. It's sometimes it's hard to know. Which is why, by the way, I'm super excited to have this group and I sort of wish we could meet in person, and maybe we will in the not too distant future. But I would love to sort of get to know many of you better. Because the more the more experts in different fields I can meet the better it is for me if there's something that, you know, I see. And I'm like, Well, you know, for instance, I saw a nanotech Company A few months ago, and I was able to send it to one of our foresight, fellows, who's a nanotech expert. And he gave me, he gave me some great advice on it. And so I would, I would love to, to be able to meet many of you in person just to be able to go back and forth on different things like that.

Yeah, we're hoping In the meantime, to set up more of a virtual community and community membership profile, at least so people can reach out to each other by Bono. Do you want to provide some clarity on the question that you asked us run? It was the one who just asked the question, and perhaps a little bit on your background to Sonic gauge.

Okay, I work at the National Institute on Aging. And I am director for the division of aging biology. So, and I is supporting some clinical studies with subtle ethics in relationship to COVID-19, for example, so I'm not agreeing or disagreeing about the hyper overhype unsettledness, but I am curious to know how quickly do you need to have a result before you think it's worthwhile, either worth to make a judgement as to whether it's worthwhile or not.

Right, right. Yes, no. Okay. Now it now I see what you're saying. The reason I think it was overhyped is because people were expect people were expecting a result sooner than it came. People kept saying that there was going to be a result, right? That was actually the overhype. I think that you're quite right, that what you're implying is that cellulitis may very well pay off and it just might take some time. And so yeah, I mean, my timeline is very long. I'm trying to get more time so that I can have a much longer horizon to watch things.

I'm older than you. So my timeline is by definition shorter.

Yeah. Well, hopefully.

He's maybe he's older, but he is now formally and going forward, the head of the biology of aging division, so Congratulation, Ron, I don't know if you realize that.

Thanks. Patrick.

I want to I want to make another point. That is always interesting for me. It we we have different languages. And they don't make the same sense to us. When you say hype of this analytic. You're talking about what happened in the business arena.

That's right. Yeah. We

we have no proof of concept on any drug that's working in human right. I mean, that's part Tovar our problem? If so we have two distinct between because I think there are better promises and less better promises. But I understand where you're coming from.

Yes, that's a very good point. Yeah, we exactly. I was talking about it from a business perspective.

All right, thank you. Well, and we haven't come in from our way as well. Just chime in.

Sure. Thank you. Um, so first of all to run, yeah, I'm so happy about this, I was genuinely fearing that Ron would be regarded by the decision makers, as altogether too enlightened for this job. So that hasn't happened. So that's fantastic. Can we leave me alone,

please? Thank you.

All right. So um, yes to what I was going to ask Tanya. And of course, the rest of the group was with regard to how we can continue to make even further progress on what I view as the single biggest thing that we did last year. The biggest thing that we did last year, in my view, is to bring together such a large number of really powerful people in both the science and the policy. I'm not sure on big Can someone say whether I'm being heard everyone has frozen on me?

Yeah, yeah.

Good. Um, yeah, um, science and policy, and, you know, regulation and even government, of course. So the thing is, can we do even more in that regard, at the end of the day, in order to have real impact, and we will, and we deserve to have given the talent and knowledge here, we need to go further, we need to get the attention of you know, we need to get Anthony falchi speaking at this group, we need to get, you know, Joe Biden listening, things like that. And I feel that the rate of progress we have made, so far has been so impressive that we should be any high in that regard. We should not see any limits to how to whose attention we can get. So I want to from everybody, if that's only a first, how we might go about that? Well, I

think it all depends on what kind of attention we want to bring. You know, it's,

I mean, maybe,

maybe you're saying we want Joe Biden because we want him to be interested in in aging, and then maybe the government will fund aging, and maybe the FDA will recognize aging, and that would be a big one. But yeah, I mean, I think we have to be careful about what we're what our goals are, and what we're trying to do. Um, what do you think, Allison? You're the one who I mean, and by the way, I just want to give even more credit to Allison, because she's done such a great job. And this really wouldn't have happened without her. So thank you.

Yeah, well, I'm definitely if I, if I'm trying to do anything, then it's hurting the cats. But I think in terms of the government question, I also want to ask Larry Callahan, who just raised his hand there, you found out how to raise your hand and perhaps say, like a word or two from where you're coming to from this angle? And then perhaps you want to speak specifically on AI?

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Alison, I know to learn a raise my hand on zoom. And I really attribute that to this Zoo group. So

otherwise, I

just speak randomly. But I think one of the big problems, I don't know how many of you get a chance, I sent Ellison something about the Searcy meeting about Regulatory Affairs. And Janet Woodcock, who's the Director of seeder gave a talk there. And she made a good point. But it's really bad, you know, that of all the clinical trials that were done for COVID for therapeutics, we have no information other than hydroxychloroquine doesn't work. And all the other interventions may work slightly, at least, you know. So I think I think the thing that has to happen is we have to think of new ways to do clinical trials to make you know, a lot of patients involved in them even you know, in and I think for longevity, that's a big issue too. And that one of the ways to do it. Like we can't, everybody talks about real world evidence, but the real world data is so bad that you can't use it really, people who have tried to do that stuff. So a lot of it is trying to include this thing and trying to get one of the things that I know Keith has mentioned that too, is you know, we have to have personal healthcare records, you know, where all your healthcare records are aggregated somewhere and you know, there needs to be some lobbying for that and that maybe we'll be able to figure out from that do real world evidence and figure out why some people are living a lot longer and have greater health spans than others. Other countries are doing that and maybe we can take advantage of that too. But But I think the whole nature of clinical trials like I did some work in HIV research and the reason why it became so successful because there was a lot of coordination in you know, between it you know, later on it took us a long time to learn to do that so that different companies drugs would get in there and try them and I think it's a it's a tragedy that we weren't ready for something like that off the block. For Colvin. In fact, when we get anyways it's been a disaster for therapeutic When we gave an easy way to hydroxychloroquine, everybody around the world started to use it, we had absolutely no data that it was effective. It was just totally theoretical. In fact, we had data, it wasn't effective at the time. And we still went ahead and gave it away. And we, you know, there's tons of patients got treated with it. And you know, they had no benefit from it. And I think that's why we have to be careful and really capture information, try to get better targeted and powered studies so that you can really get real information, I think it will take a whole overhaul the whole clinical trial industry, where it's much more coordinated, and much more regulated in the sense that you we just can't allow clinical trials, you know, you're putting patients at risk and wasting their time and everything else in their life, sometimes you have to really run a more coordinated, effective clinical trial network and in a global sense. Well,

Larry, one idea that, you know, we came up with in the last few years, actually, if this group could put together something like, you know, a first prototype of where we share both data in an open, accessible way, but also, you know, where perhaps folks could be doing more like early research that could then serve as prototypes for what could then on what could then be set for foundation for establishing trials there. What do you think that that that has any chance of ever being recognized by the FDA? Do you think that, you know, this group doing some kind of groundwork, in that regard? doesn't have any impact on on that at all? Like, yeah.

What would it be useful to? Well, I

mean, a,

you've had some reports on aging, I mean, biomarkers, you know, we don't validate many biomarkers, and maybe we should, you know, I again, I mean, I think you know, that there's the Metformin that knows, or whatever his name is doing right now, and FDA, you know, aging isn't particularly not considered a disease and old statute doesn't really say it has to be a disease. It says, you know, you affect the physiological body, and certainly aging is that it's just, how do you measure it? How do you know, how do you measure your health and health span and things like that, but I think I don't think there's a big reluctance. I mean, there's a lot of aging reviewers at FDA, and I'm sure they would want to see things that, you know, improve their health span, and if we can get good data to show that I mean, the Blue Zone data stuff around the world that, you know, some people are helping them. But again, that's the thing is to get good clinical data that shows that, you know, taking Rosemary every day helps or, you know, there's a lot of things that out there that people claim help, and, you know, to really get solid clinical data, that's the thing that we don't have on a lot of things we don't have it really unfolded for therapeutics, a lot of protocols for a protocol that may work and you know, but we don't have good clinical data. And it's a real tragedy, you certainly have no patience.

Yeah, that's true. And we are having a few meetings later this year, where we're going to talk about biomarker standardization and how we can use them better as metrics. And then thanks to you, of course, we have someone from the FDA, as well as speak to us about how they at least handle and those biomarkers for FDA approved diseases. So thanks for that. We're hoping that we can tackle the problem. But Sonny, did you want to react to it? And then we have Bernal Segal with a comment from the chat.

Yeah, I was just thinking that maybe it might make sense. And if it were easy for us to put together sort of a top 10 List of like the top 10 things the government could do to help longevity science move along, right, like having helping to establish a record system where, you know, researchers can use anonymous data or something or, you know, if we have some interesting or even just top five things that FDA could recognize aging, for instance, we maybe some kind of top list that we could circulate. And at least you know, that's something that

well, one idea would also be putting together a top list. And then below that, what different actors could do to make that happen, because recognizing aging as a disease like that involves probably a lot of different people doing a lot of different things. So you know, then different people, depending on who they are, could then pick a little bit a little piece of the puzzle. And Bernard, did you want to say something? Or Tom, I know that your company on the check, right?

Yeah, so I was on mute. So I can't restrain myself from making chat comments. To this. I really am glad that I joined and, and I welcome this group. It's tremendously so my work is involved with regenerative medicine Foundation, and it's also moving the needle on regulatory and, and general policies related to some of the technologies and the enabling enabling technologies that are needed. For as Aubrey puts it to advance the longevity crusade. So, my comment was to my latest comment was to the individual that said, Well, what how is this like, act up and is aging in general is not viewed in the idea of a pandemic, right? It's a AARP. And that's not going to get anything done other than getting us car insurance. So I'm looking to see ways that we can align this really meritorious movement that you're creating with the other groups and multitude of medical philanthropies and disease groups, and align ourselves with that towards the same goal, largely, these cutting edge technologies need streamlining of FDA regulation, and not only in the United States, but around the world. So how can these things align? I perceived the longevity movement is really the almost the spear point of the future, right. And as this gains momentum is going to be very welcome in the community, so I should be listening. I didn't mean to even interject myself, I have to be in more listening mode in 2021. But I can't help myself. Just Well, what

do you think

for, for Regenerative Medicine entities is the number one perhaps push factor there? Well,

certainly COVID has related opportunities for Regenerative Medicine, MSC trials, for example, for COVID related arts. And there is big progress with that, you know, even a recent trial that was reported out of the University of Miami, and there's a realization in that community, that the FDA is for the field of stem cells demanding large scale clinical trials, random randomized, is if we're going to have to go through that total process to get cell therapies. approved, it's going to be a very, very heavy lift. So real world evidence, building outcomes databases, using AI, certainly, and, and recognizing that industry and all the enabling technologies have the biggest stake in him in it, and bringing in those industry factors. And as Sonia said, the investor community is also leading the way but it's like a giant toss salad, you know, for all have all the separate ingredients, and the little jars, we got to mix them together. And, and that's what gets me so pleased about this group, which is about Hyatt very high intellectual, spearpoint, but that makes it hard for the common people that live in my communities in Palm Beach to sometimes understand the vision. But we can really get this done, I think, yeah.

Sunday. Do you want to react to that?

Yeah, no, I agree. And I have to say that I was, I was a little taken aback by nirs comment earlier, although I believe you that some people just they're not they don't think about aging is something that we might be able to tackle. And they haven't even heard of your trial?

I mean, what?

That is shocking to me. Um, and so yeah, we need we need to, we need to do more, maybe I should start writing a little bit more again, I should take some of my my time away from investing and start writing some more. You know, by this thinking the other day how, you know, every day the newspapers are publishing counts of how many people have died from COVID. And I thought, can you imagine if we lived in a world where they published every day, the counts? That how many people died from cancer today? How many people died from Alzheimer's? Today? How many people die from the diseases of aging today? Everybody would be freaking out, right? I mean, the numbers would be gigantic. So I think this is an opportunity in time for us to ride that wave, for sure.

Would it be great if everyone was freaking out?

Well be great if they were willing to do something about it. We don't want them just randomly freaking out. We've seen we've seen that. freaking out people can put their can put their energies to the wrong places, sometimes.

We I remember, when we started this group last year, and always said right at the beginning, something like we can't miss the boat on this one, we have to make clear that the COVID and aging correlation or like the ratios between them are so strong. And so I'm really curious, do you think like, do you think and does the group think this has been done enough? Or do you think people have are kind of missing are totally missing the relationship because many people that I speak to they still think that a lot of young people die. And so I wonder whether we missed the boat or whether there's still something right now that one can

do. I think I think we have sort of missed the boat. I mean, it's crazy to is

it

even reading the news articles where they're saying, Okay, now the government says it should the vaccine should be distributed on an age based basis? Well, yes. Right. I mean, there's an age component. They're only sort of realizing this. Now. From the authorities. I just I think that I think that everybody is so scared. And there have been all these very high profile, you know, news articles about young people getting it and like children getting this odd Rare Disease when you know, and that's kind of obscured the fact that that is linked to age very, very tightly.

Yeah, thanks. I think Aubrey has a comment on that, too.

Yeah, I

want to slightly disagree with Sonia's answer that just now, I would say that no, we have definitely not missed that boat yet. Because the key thing that tells me when the boat is going to leave the station is when the top policymakers and decision makers start to shift their attention from the pandemic to the next pandemic. They know the prevention of the next pandemic, and a minimization which has not happened yet. So I've been trying to refine my own language here. Obviously, I'm the kind of person who's best at being a provocateur, rather than a diplomat. And so I have been finding ways to do that. And one thing that I've started to say very loudly, which I was not saying when I first brought this comment up to the group, is that it's highly likely that in the long run COVID will actually save far more lives than it claims, which is a nice sound. But But of course, what I mean by it is that the consequences of COVID down the road will be to accelerate and focus people's minds, decision makers minds on what we can do to prevent the health problems and suffering. And of course, the economic catastrophe associated with things like this. We obviously know that if we could rejuvenate and indeed maintain the youth of the immune system COVID would be very much less of a problem. And that also applied, obviously in spades to future pandemics. So that's the kind of logic and the kind of language that I'm at right now.

Thanks, Nir, do

you want to?

Yeah, I totally I totally second. Aubrey Aubrey, it's always amazing how how much we agree it's almost the same language I we never, we never were talking about the opportunity on aging. That was specific for COVID. It was specific for any future epidemic to it's how do we right, rejuvenate the immune response and prepare the body to deal with infection when you're old. But another reason that we're not done is that unlike what you think, you know, about these immunization, this immunization is not going to work in the elderly the same way. And I'm carefully reading the New England Journal of Medicine in every paper that's coming on. Because remember that the machinery that this mRNA is using is the machinery that also fails with aging. So it's true that it's effective in elderly, but those elderly have no other medical conditions. So those are biologically young, elderly. You know, I don't see that these immunizations effect. I hope it is. But let's be prepared, because you'll start seeing that the elderly still get a COVID. After this immunization, by the way, if I'm wrong, there's something we don't understand in the biology of aging of how the same RNA can get over everything. But I predict that you'll find out that it's not as effective. And it's, again, a way for us to say yeah, let's fix the immune senescence. And and we'll do better for this and for the next epidemic.

Maybe we get a second boat. Tom, did you want to chime in as well?

Yeah. I just wanted to say a little bit about what are different strategies to go from ideas to something happening in the world. And I think it's useful to distinguish between those things that can happen more or less organically, because they are things that happen between mutually consenting adults. So a canonical example of that would be an entrepreneur has a great idea. She pitches Sonia, and Sonia decides to write a check for a series for a seed investment. Right. So that that's that's something that is sort of hot can happen organically in a bottom up fashion between mutually consenting adults. I think that there are other things that, for example, changes in policy that may not happen organically and that require A more concerted effort. So the questions that I'm always interested in are, number one, where are we today As of early 2021? Number two, where would we like to be over the short, medium and long term? And then finally, what are the public and private actions that would allow us to achieve those goals or at least begin to move in the right direction. most complex problems require building a coalition. So it's not the type of thing that you know, one individual is going to be able to solve by themselves. And it's very difficult to build a coalition. If you can't do two things at a minimum, number one, identify the members of the coalition. And number two, identify the mutually reinforcing steps that you want them to take in the form eight SP Soc. So for example, on the government side, that might be a good start would be the NIH, the NIH, which is the an arm of the NIH, that can engage in public private partnerships and does things like runs the biomarkers Consortium, and the FDA. So I would say on the government side, that those would be three organizations to focus on. So for example, you could say that an IRA should have an increase in its top line. That is not, that is not specifically allocated to Alzheimers, so that it can fund additional work in both fundamental and translational neuroscience. That's an example of what I'm talking about. And then you can say, all right, well, what has to happen in order for that to occur? And I, you know, if anyone's interested I, I can sort of tell you because that my job was on something like the Brain Initiative, was to get NIH, DARPA, I ARPA, the National Science Foundation, additional funding to try to do for neuroscience, what the Genome Project did for genetics. So I can tell you, literally, what are all the steps? And who are all the people who need to say yes. And if you're on the outside, what are the things that you can do to make it as easy as possible for that to occur? You can imagine rules for philanthropy. So if you were a billionaire, and you were interested in this, what are the things that you would fund? If you're a venture capitalist, and you and you wanted to issue something like the the Y Combinator requests for startups, where they say, you know, these are all the startups that that we would like to see, you know, what would be on your list? So what is the coalition of the willing and able that needs to come together? You know, how can you define with some level of specificity? what it is that you want those individuals and organizations to do? And how do you make it falling off a log? easy for them? How do you make it as easy as possible?

for them to do that? So for example, if I wanted my boss to do something, I wouldn't say I have a problem. And I would like you to solve your problem. You to solve my problem for me, I would say, I want you to send the following email to this member of the cabinet. Right. So anyway, that's Everyone has their own sort of perspective on how change happens in the world. But one way in which it happens is that there's a you, a group of people has, has articulated a coherent relationship between ends and means. And they can answer the what, how, who and why. At from the kind of very high general level bumper sticker to the sort of more specific implementation strategy that is required to make success. So I put in the chat. Yeah. An example of the computer science research community has a mechanism for continually refreshing the computer science research agenda. But nothing like that exists for the aging community. So there's one person I can call and he can mobilize the best some of the top researchers in the country to say, what are the most important and exciting research challenges in the field of computer science and, and get me you know, a set of five to 10 page white papers that articulate what those are on both core fundamental CS topics, but then computer science applied to particulars societal challenges, like the pandemic

Now that would be a valuable I think pursuit for to do for aging. And Sonia, do you want to activate?

Well, I was gonna say I nominate Tom to put together a list for us of what we should do. I serve a draft list that we can all go over and discuss and thinking about how we can how we can start moving the needle.

We could come up with a list for Tom to make it really easy for him to do we need from him.

Right? Well, that or we could put together the list and then he could tell us if it makes any sense from

is,

I'm happy to send you this sort of what I've heard so far, just from asking people this question. And I wouldn't say that there's unanimity. I think it's a classic, you know, three blind people in the elephant with everyone. You know, everyone has a tendency to believe whatever they're working on is the most important part of the, of the problem. But, you know, I, there's certain things that I that I hear fairly consistently as being important.

Yeah, I mean, I would like to know that because we will be going through like industry research, and so forth, like in the upcoming month, like in the individual meetings. So I think it will be useful if you have specific questions that you think we should be tackling with those people in those specific focus sessions. And, you know, I think we are also trying to do it kind of from both ways. One, you know, we're going to talk about like, individually, we do on each level, what can people do, but then also, I think, just by doing this, and going through the process, we're hoping to build kind of like a community also bottom up for folks that you know, already kind of like are interested in supporting each other and, and helping each other. And so I think what we will maybe be doing more of the more maybe like more of an entrepreneurial network or something, but meanwhile tackling the I think the questions on different levels. So hopefully, we can kind of like, yeah, we can create a, like a proof of concept in this community that a larger coalition could work. And okay, we have David gobo Lynn Cox, but before that kreon had his hand up for a long, long time. Oh,

yes, sure. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. This is a question I kind of look like we've got the three different

institutional types, represented in our quote unquote, panel. So we got Sonia and our return of representing industry, thrill capital, and we've got Tom senate government, and we've got near representing academia. And my question is for any of them who want to address this question, and that is, how do we make sure that in this longevity field, which arguably is like people claiming it's going to be the biggest market ever in the history of everything, and going to be like 10s of trillions of dollars, as soon as it gets off the ground? How do we avoid having sort of hype and technology and people getting rich, dominate over maybe what might also be very simple, low cost measures that can be taken to aid in staving off the diseases of aging, simple, low cost measures like Metformin, or even our restriction or caloric restriction? Simple measures, like just informational measures, like getting people aware that it's almost all old fail, people are dying of COVID? Well, my 30 year old, healthy friends cower in their homes, because they're so afraid. I mean, it seems like we're missing so much simple stuff. That's not part of the multi trillion dollar, you know, market that everyone's scrambling after. There's nothing wrong with scrambling after that marketing, trying to make advance technologies like analytics and stuff, but but how do we make sure that we, as a community, don't just all jump on these hype things? And, and, and Miss really simple, effective things that can make a huge difference while we wait. But so can

I can I jump in on that? Because I think that's a good example of a market failure. So if you talk to VCs and you and say, How excited are you about investing in companies that focus on prevention? The answer is in many cases is they're not excited about it, because of patient churn. So when they talk to health plans, they say, Well, you know, if, if I can only be guaranteed that Allison is going to be with me for 18 months, then if I invest in a prevention program to reduce the risk of diabetes or stroke or heart disease, then there's a good chance that some other health plan is going to capture the benefits of my investment. So I think, you know, one question that I'm interested in is, if we have all this information about things that would pay for themselves, understanding why it's not how Because otherwise, you're in a situation of, of the two economists and where one says, that's a $20 bill on the floor. And the other says nonsense. If it were really a $20 bill, someone would have picked it up already. And so, you know, wonder, understanding why, if there are all these high impact prevention investments to be made widely being made, I think it's really important. And yeah,

I think that, like Tom said, we have to address the reasons for why, for why some of these things aren't happening. Like, if, even with people who know what they need to do to keep themselves healthy, it's sometimes really hard for them to do it, and doctors, knowing what their patients should do often look at their patience and say, you know, what, you're probably not going to stick to your diet. So I'm going to prescribe you to this drug instead. And just understanding that it's a lot of behavioral issues. And, you know, and aside from the, you know, investors don't want to invest in something that they're not going to get a return on. It's, there's all these sort of behavioral problems that we all deal with. I mean, it's reason why there's like, every January, people are like, they resolved to like, eat less low carb, you know, dry January, whatever. And you do that for a while, and then you get stressed out and you eat a whole bunch of pasta and drink some wine. You know, it's it's hard. It's it. These are, these are hard things. And so that's why that's why we need more, and why what we have doesn't work and why we're looking for other things. Not to say that you shouldn't still try to be healthy. It's just,

yeah.

Yeah, hopefully, it may not get us all the way. And, okay, Lin, you had your hand up for a while.

Okay, my point was taken back to something we were talking about earlier, and about accessing, getting the profile up and accessing government. And I understand why, but most of the conversations been about the US situation. And I think that there's enough of an international community that we will ought to be working with governments around the world, rather than just focusing on the US. And over here, we have been doing quite a bit of work, I put in the chat that the House of Lords, which is the upper house in the UK, parliament is releasing a report tomorrow on the science of aging. And in that there are some very strong recommendations for tackling causes of aging, rather than individual diseases. It's pushing the whole aging agenda forwards on this. So I just don't make it entirely US based. Think about everywhere else that has the ability to work within the community. And look at how COVID is being tackled differently. So again, I mean, I'm not saying that the UK is any good at this stuff. We've had some disasters with COVID. But one good thing that we have done is right from the outset, insisted that any drugs have to go through full proper double blinded clinical trials. So we haven't had the hydroxychloroquine disasters, we've had tax and methadone success. We've had the anti il six successes, things that have just gone into clinic because they've been shown to work. So there are some models that you can use from other countries that might be beneficial. So let's let's make it global, rather than local.

Yeah. And we're very happy to have you on later as well that you can do that. Hopefully, Sunday. You want to

Yeah, no, totally, totally agree. The US is not necessarily a great model for a lot of things these days. And, yeah, and we shouldn't, I mean, I guess it just happens, because we all are, many of us are in the US. But to the extent where we can get a friendly country. I mean, this is amazing that the I didn't know that the UK government was about to come out with a with a aging report. So that's fantastic. I mean, that that's a model. And to the extent that we can learn about those and sort of, you know, use them as models for other countries as well to sort of spread it that would be great.

What about that? Because I've also been in touch with the people who are at the sharp end of the British efforts in this area. And I think one person that I briefly drew the attention to a few months ago with Tina woods, who has led the what had to be called the all parliamentary, all party parliamentary group on longevity, and has produced some fantastic reports. It would certainly I think, Lynne, I think you agree, be great to get Tina to give us an in depth report on what she did and how it's been going.

I absolutely. We're trying to tie that together with the House of Lords report as well. So I'm not allowed to give 10 or a copy until tomorrow because there is a formal embargo on it. Apparently are being considered To the House of Lords if I released it today. But yeah, I've been working with the APG for longevity and the House of Lords committee on this, and that there really is a very big tribe. And one thing that I think would be useful to this group, Tina brings in an AI background. So she's looking at Big Data. She's looking at all the issues that we've got in the UK, but I'm sure they're replicable elsewhere. So how we utilize the data, we've got the NHS in the UK has standardized patient records, we've got full birth to death histories, but the problem is accessing them because of different data packages used to collect them in compatibility between systems, but also a big privacy issue and how we need to actually rethink the use of patient data, if we're going to make use of it in the aging context.

For that, we are probably going to have a spin off meeting with Adrian Crapo, who's here on the call, who is working on self serving communities and for different types of data structure models. And but I just want to check in with you, Sonia, do you have to hop off at the hour? Because we're now three minutes over?

Unfortunately, I do. I didn't want to say anything, but I do kind of have to go.

Okay, okay. Yes, I just want to be sure that that will leave people an out. And I would say for those who are still interested to stay on, we still have a few hands up. But Tanya, hey, I can't thank you enough for enabling us to do this. We will have you on again next month. And we are going to be discussing the industry events, but specifically and up to then I hopefully have a reply from all of you guys to the form that I send out, because then we can review everyone else's answers. And hopefully create some membership profiles. But for now, Sonia, thank you so so, so much for enabling us to, to do this work, hopefully this year, so you can hold us accountable to it for it was only up to you. But thank you,

thank you. And thank you. And thanks for everybody for being part of this group I'm really enjoying and so happy and you know, honored to be part of it. So, so thankful.

Bye. Bye, Sonia.

Okay, great. So what for whoever would like to say I think there were still a few questions that were floating about in the room. And then I would love to open up, we gather room, so we can all kind of like, discuss and socialize a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. informally. So I don't know, if you still wanted to discuss a few of the questions here. Uh, Joe, I see that you had your hand up, too. And we have JJ and Keith. So maybe you want to go out and go with the questions. And then we can see whether afterwards we move on to the s or together space.

All right, just quickly, I am questioning how much how much change we need from regulatory agencies, compared to people interested in funding stuff, because, I mean, obviously, there's an overlap in the form of government funding agencies. But last I checked, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of age related diseases that we can use as proxies for doing clinical trials to try things out. And whereas instead, the getting the funding to try something out in the clinic is much harder. I think that the more people are able to do this one, you get positive results on trying out therapies against proxy, aging diseases, also, the more the general public can hear about that and and realize that these are actually affecting fundamental aging aspects. Last I checked, I think, even nears trial, which is obviously a great triumph of regulatory whispering. It's not even fully funded yet. Is it? Is it? Is it still basically limited by money? Maybe you're still on? I don't know if she's still on but maybe someone else knows.

Is that so?

I, I probably shouldn't speak for near but I think he's a lot more optimistic now.

Right, but it's still like, it's been a fundraising process. Like he's made more regulatory progress and funding progress. I would say, based on what I what I've heard, you know, so somebody in our community has a fantastic drug that they're, you know, target that they've discovered and as a drug ready to be tried for it. And there are some proxy aging disease of which there's, you know, a list as long as a lot of my army. And then next question is who's going to who's going to plunk down the you know, the five or 10 million bucks it takes to try that out?

Can I just put them in, please.

It's one thing I'm doing my next child. A lot of you might know about the mTOR inhibitor it be 101. That was really promising and famous. Two and phase two B. And yet the phase three was declared a failure, but not because the drug failed, but because the FDA changed the endpoint for respiratory tract infections and older people from clinically confirmed as in a lab diagnosis to self reported symptoms of respiratory tract infections. And so that just put so, so much noise in the system, that they they couldn't get any statistical significance. So restore bio is no longer a thing, the drug is sort of dead in the water, even though it's probably an incredibly effective drug. But the FDA didn't know what to do about an endpoint for a large trial in aging. So I think we really do need some more work on regulation and kings regulators. So NIST done a fantastic job, but they still don't think they get it. And so whoever's got influenced with their various regulatory bodies, we've got to try and push it through the HRA, and in the UK, just haven't a clue that aging is malleable. They just see it as individual diseases, huh?

Yeah, I remember talking to like, glickstein, about that, sort of on the medical side of designing that trial, and he was feeling better about the FDA his choice

there.

I don't know if that's something that we can just take as a learning and, and, you know, be part of like, how we design and get approval for our, our clinical trials, or it's kind of a diffused monster to, to push against. And that because it's so hard to define exactly what happened there. But if you have a specific idea, I would love to

push on it.

Anyway, if there's someone, you know, like, if we could create a fund or a network of people who could refer to funds, what when an entrepreneur has an actual aging pathway therapy that they want to take out to a clinical trial for some aging proxy disease, you know, if the news could go out to the network, and there's some way of sharing that calm or doing it as, as an investment or a special purpose vehicle and a particular trial, or something like that, that would be pretty cool.

And I think that's something we talked about in one of the early meetings, which is basically more like a startup advisory board, like if you have an idea, help you pull it together and organize it and make contacts. And that might be a really good way to enable these things.

Yeah, well, part of the reason why I wanted to do this form that I send out is so that we can kind of like to see what people are good at what skills they have here and what people could be advising on. So, you know, one thing that could fall out of that is monitor Connect members network, but also like a mentorship network a little bit so that we can maybe already kind of like direct people to people in the network, if they have specific questions, or if they need advice. And for funding structures, I remember I was talking about it, and a few people were apprehensive about it because of potential conflict of interest. And and because then this whole group, you know, turn into a very different thing. But I've been looking into it with a few other people in a few different structures. And I'll definitely be open to exploring it further. And and don't think it's a bad idea. I think it's a very concrete thing that we could do in this community. And because many of us are well connected, and yeah, so I think I agree. Is there anything, anyone who want to react to this point, otherwise, I'll be moving on to the hands that are raised. Okay, good. Then we have JJ and Keith.

Hi, JJ. So go back to Lin's point. In the UK, I'm going to put a link but it's, you maybe a lot of you are familiar with that they have something called the UK Biobank and very good data resource. So you case, like collecting genomic data and phenotypic data for very large amount of people. So you can do kind of like data science on that data. To kind of map those things together. You can do that without you don't have to be a citizen. You have to be a researcher and you have to pay like a small fee. But anyone can get access to that. The other thing is mRNA thing I almost forgot to say butter, but it's good for like precision medicine and it could have like an application to to want want longitudinal vaccine is kind of like the use case that was the main intention, the main intention of that platform. So it kind of became certain features of the platform that make it kind of like, quite fast, creating things. Exactly why it could be useful in precision medicine. There's some technologies that are missing ability to manufacture DNA really quickly. challenging. It's kind of expensive. But that's like a platform that can be very useful.

Thank you. Yes, please share if you haven't done so, any reactions to this. Okay, keep

Sure.

Yeah, I just wanted to note that, you know, we've been talking about earlier, you know, changing sort of the system from the inside. And Tom in particular, was very eloquent. So I don't have anything to add on strategies. But I think it's also worth noting that a group like ours might be able to also identify a completely different path, which is another way to change a system, right is to just put forth into the world, that demonstrable better example of something to force the existing system to change. So there might be things we can do one example that that I'm making some headway on, that's not aging related is I was just recently talking to the team from MIT that has created a very interesting audio based COVID-19 detector based off earlier Alzheimer's work. And that can be improved. And on the flip side of it, I was talking with certain organizations, like, for example, the NBA, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the NBA bubble, to allow basketball to continue with COVID-19, all these crazy things they're doing to test the players, it can almost all be replaced by literally then just talking to a phone. So things like this might be able to happen and working on it. And if they do, they can become an sensational news story of like, Oh, crap, like, why aren't we doing this kind of stuff everywhere. So this is an example of something that's almost free. If you can just learn to connect the pieces in the right way that can create something to make everybody go, why aren't we doing this everywhere? Right? So there might be analogous things, that we can do it with aging, without, you know, not changing the system from the inside regulatory, but just doing something. So obviously better than everyone, everyone puts pressure on the system to go do that instead? Right? Just noting that

any reactions or anyone in the group? Okay, did I mean, I don't even know if anyone everyone knows about the MBA MBA thing, but it's totally not. I think,

as another clear example, you know, Disneyland and Disney World have been functioning at severely diminished capacity. Because of this, with a system like that, they might be able to open their doors a lot more, make a lot of money becomes a sensational news story. Again, I'm not saying anything is happening. I'm just saying these are some examples of things that could be very clear news stories that would, in that case, make everybody wonder why the why the government isn't making the manufacturers of phones, you know, have a COVID detector that doesn't require you to share any privacy data. It's just built into your phone, and lets you know how you might have COVID, go get checked.

All right. Well, thank you, Keith. And Okay, is there anyone here on the call? Who would like to make another comment? All right, good. So what I would really love is, if by next time, so we're meeting again next month, but we are going to have a social meeting on Saturday, where people from this group, if if you're interested, you can meet people from other groups. And so that's the molecular machines, groups, intelligent cooperation group, and an hour extension whole group. So this is one of four groups at first sight. So this will be in a more social online space. And so if people are interested in either, you know, chatting amongst this group or with others, and and that's an open invitation to all of you. Also, what I'm hoping to do from the forums that I send out, is actually create those member profiles so that we get a little bit more of an idea of who's here and how can we maybe help each other over the long run. And another thing that that program will entail is also more of a kind of like, regularly updated opportunities boards. So this would be more like a jobs and opportunities board where folks can share either upcoming upcoming conferences that they have, but also upcoming job opportunities, or if they're looking for something specific. So let's see if we can, you know, create a little bit more structure around this so that it's not only the meetings as a kind of a communication point, but there's other touch points as well. And yeah, I welcome all of you to propose to me specific topics that you want to explore. For example, Robbie did that last year, right, where we then had a few kind of bank and satellite meetings that were specifically focused on exploring individual topics, and we're going to continue them hopefully this year. But if you have specific topics of interest that you want to explore the group, then I will send out invitations to those to the list. If they are, if they are aligned, and so we have a monthly attach point, but then hopefully, based on your interest, we can have many, many more meetings than that. And so I'm hoping that we can create a little bit more bottom up community this year where all of you get to get and get to lead those meetings. And it's not, it's not just me trying to impose a good topic on you, but you can actually you can, you can take that much more. Okay, so this is an invitation, please, please, please send me things that you want to that you want to discuss with the group of common interest and I'll be sharing them. And next meeting, which is next month, I will be will be quickly talking about the program. But then we very quickly dive into the industry bottlenecks that we could be focusing on in the second half of the year. And we're going to have cough leaguer, Sonia and Mike West there. So I'm really excited for that. I'm hoping that I see many of you also on Saturday already. Saturday is this more social event. But yeah, that's all from my end. Is there anything I am missing? No. Okay, great. Well, then. I am. ay. I'll see you next month. And yeah, it's really really nice to see so many of you again, I'm hoping to see a few more in the social context on Saturday.