September 2015 Liz was nervous. She was on a plane to Colombia, where she would undergo an untested gene therapy.
She and her colleagues had spent two years developing the treatment and making preparations, but they couldn't know how it would turn out.
The treatment consisted of two intravenous injections, and it went without a hitch. Then came a wait of several weeks for results. The report was startling.
Before the treatment, the biomarkers Liz used indicated that her biological age was 66,
a full 22 years older than her chronological age (44 at the time of testing).
After the treatment, her reported biological age dropped to match her chronological age.
Liz repeated the treatment in 2020, and she reports that since 2015, her biological age has decreased by an average of five years each year.
It dropped sharply again after the second treatment, and now, remarkably, it is below 25.
Liz publishes this data publicly, but her approach has proven controversial.
George Martin, a professor of pathology at the University of Washington, was a consultant for Liz Parrish's company BioViva but resigned when he heard about the trip to Colombia.
Maria Blasco, the Spanish scientist whose pioneering work underlies Liz Parrish's treatment,
insists that treatments should not be administered without rigorous trials validated by the FDA and other regulatory agencies.
Liz has no regrets. She does not dispute the need to make medical treatment as safe as possible, but notes that it can never be completely risk-free.
"People are killed by regulated drugs all the time." The type of treatment she took achieved remarkable results in mice for over a decade.
True, mice and humans are, of course, very different species, but the treatment was shown not to harm human cells.
In the years since her treatment, Liz has met with presidents, health ministers, and policymakers around the world.
There is much interest in her arguments, but also a reluctance to depart from the status quo. (Death from old age)
Liz hopes that one way to overcome this resistance is by making new treatments available to end-of-life patients without the usual testing,
patients who have tried every approved approach and have no alternative left.
It takes decades and billions of dollars to bring a new drug to market, which means many promising treatments never get a chance.
One result of this is the rise of medical tourism, with patients traveling to clinics outside the jurisdiction of the FDA and similar agencies.
Many of these clinics are reputable institutions with professional management, but others are not.
Liz argues that the existence of medical tourism is a sign that something is wrong with the medical establishment,
and she also notes that 80% of medical trials conducted by large pharmaceutical companies are performed outside U.S. shores.
There is no way to know how many people have followed Liz Parrish's path, but she thinks there are many.
Given the remarkable results she reports, it might be surprising that there aren't more.
Telomeres
The main gene therapy treatment Liz underwent was designed to lengthen her telomeres. (She also took a myostatin inhibitor to combat muscle loss.)
Our genes are composed of intertwined strands of DNA molecules called chromosomes.
When our cells divide, these strands would fray without the protection provided by telomeres.
Telomeres are segments of DNA that repeat information, making them expendable.
When a cell divides more than a certain number of times (known as the Hayflick limit, typically 50 to 70 times), the telomeres essentially run out, and the chromosome itself is damaged.
A substance called telomerase can prevent this decay, maintaining the cell's genetic stability.
Liz Parrish's reduced biological age was measured by the number of telomeres in her white blood cells—specifically in her T lymphocytes,
a type of white blood cell that plays an important role in the body's immune response.
Gene therapy is delivered using viruses, known as "vectors."
The treatment Liz Parrish used in 2015 employed a vector called AAV, and her company is now working on another vector called cytomegalovirus (CMV).
Both technologies occur naturally in humans and monkeys, and both can deliver genes that produce telomerase without altering the genetic structure of the chromosome.
But CMV can carry larger genetic payloads than AAV, and BioViva is currently designing treatments using multiple genes to control the aging process.
BioViva has worked with Rutgers University to improve this technology and holds several patents as a result.
Liz Parrish does not believe (and rightly so) that telomere lengthening alone is sufficient to combat the disease of aging.
There are different species whose telomeres shorten quickly, and vice versa.
Human biology is embarrassingly complex, and aging will not be defeated by a single silver bullet.
But she is confident (like many other scientists) that lengthening telomeres plays a significant role in the fight.
💬 תגובות (0)
היו הראשונים להגיב על המאמר.