An Interview with Sebastian Aguiar of Apollo Ventures

Apollo Ventures is one of the first wave of investor concerns focused on the treatment of aging, and the principals and staff have put a fair amount of work into building a model for finding and commercializing promising research. They also publish the Geroscience popular science site, which is a helpful act of advocacy for the wider cause. As is the case for near all bigger venture funding organizations, they have a senolytics company (Cleara Biotech) in their portfolio, and thus the SENS model for rejuvenation is advanced. What initially attracted you to aging as a general discipline? Through multiple, orthogonal, potentially synergistic interventions, we are able to extend the healthy lifespan of model organisms. In mice, the ablation of senescent cells can extend median lifespan by 30%. The augmentation of autophagy and the transient re-activation of telomerase yield similar rejuvenating effects. These interventions should be combined, as they may be synergistic. It is only a matter of time before these interventions are working in the clinic. This kind of evidence was enough for me to commit my career to geroscience because, many years ago, I saw that the 'writing is on the wall' - thanks to advances in molecular biology, healthy life extension is no longer science fiction. This century, geroscience will be a paradigm shift comparable to the antibiotics revolution in the last century. What is the main challenge you have faced as a longevity investo...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs