John Cumbers
7.7K posts
@johncumbers
Join @SynBioBeta - May 4-7, 2026 at the San Jose Convention Center: https://t.co/UDRKKEOlJk and read my weekly newsletter: https://t.co/7Nf6wfiH9m
David Sinclair is on a mission to turn age reversal into a $100 pill. Right now, his gene therapy costs roughly $10 million to manufacture and requires a direct injection into whichever organ you're targeting. That's not going to work for 8 billion people. So Sinclair's team made a breakthrough. They found that the three age-reversal genes aren't the only path to resetting cells. They discovered CHEMICALS that do the same thing. In mice, they can now give an animal a liquid - not genes, not injections, a drink - and rejuvenate tissues in 4 weeks. Sinclair says it's now normal for his students to casually report: "We just rejuvenated the ear. We just rejuvenated the skin. We just cured ALS (motoneuron disease) in these animals." He calls his lab "Willy Wonka's chocolate factory" because the discoveries blow him away every week. But he wants one molecule that does everything. So they used AI to screen 8 BILLION candidates. They're now down to three molecules that work. And they're using AI to try to combine all three into one. The gene therapy could cost over $100,000 per treatment. Sinclair's goal: "What if it could be $100 instead? That's what I'm working for. I want to democratize this technology so anyone even in Kenya can take these medicines." They should know within a year or two if the molecules work in mice. The gene therapy is the proof of concept. The pill is the endgame. David Sinclair is speaking on May 6th at SynBioBeta this year - discussing the science of slowing and reversing aging. If longevity is the world you're in, the investors, partners, and scientists who matter in this space will be in the room. Link for tickets below. — @davidasinclair
David Sinclair is on a mission to turn age reversal into a $100 pill. Right now, his gene therapy costs roughly $10 million to manufacture and requires a direct injection into whichever organ you're targeting. That's not going to work for 8 billion people. So Sinclair's team made a breakthrough. They found that the three age-reversal genes aren't the only path to resetting cells. They discovered CHEMICALS that do the same thing. In mice, they can now give an animal a liquid - not genes, not injections, a drink - and rejuvenate tissues in 4 weeks. Sinclair says it's now normal for his students to casually report: "We just rejuvenated the ear. We just rejuvenated the skin. We just cured ALS (motoneuron disease) in these animals." He calls his lab "Willy Wonka's chocolate factory" because the discoveries blow him away every week. But he wants one molecule that does everything. So they used AI to screen 8 BILLION candidates. They're now down to three molecules that work. And they're using AI to try to combine all three into one. The gene therapy could cost over $100,000 per treatment. Sinclair's goal: "What if it could be $100 instead? That's what I'm working for. I want to democratize this technology so anyone even in Kenya can take these medicines." They should know within a year or two if the molecules work in mice. The gene therapy is the proof of concept. The pill is the endgame. David Sinclair is speaking on May 6th at SynBioBeta this year - discussing the science of slowing and reversing aging. If longevity is the world you're in, the investors, partners, and scientists who matter in this space will be in the room. Link for tickets below. — @davidasinclair
A Harvard professor who's studied aging for 30 years says one of the most powerful longevity tools on Earth is free. Fasting. David Sinclair explained what happens at the cellular level when you stop eating food for long periods of time: Your body has proteins called sirtuins. They're the conductors of your cellular orchestra - telling each gene when to turn on and off, keeping every cell's identity intact. But sirtuins need fuel called NAD to function. By age 50, your NAD levels drop by HALF. Your conductors are running on empty. Your cells start losing their identity. Fasting raises NAD back up. It reactivates the sirtuins and preserves the epigenome. Sinclair mentions it's only useful if you're already meeting nutrient and micronutrient intake as well. He himself skips breakfast daily and tries to go until late afternoon before eating. Once a month, he fasts for 3 full days because deep cellular recycling - called chaperone-mediated autophagy - only kicks in after about 2 and a half to 3 days. He called three meals a day "craziness" and said the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day was "marketing from the early 20th century" by cereal companies. Fasting is just one of the strategies he uses for optimal health. — @davidasinclair
AI didn’t just enter biology. It’s starting to rebuild it from first principles. @MichaBreakstone sold his last company for $575M. Then he went after a harder problem. What if you could model how cells signal, respond, and adapt… before you ever run an experiment? Not static biology. A virtual, dynamic system. That’s the idea behind @CellularIntelHQ | formerly @SomiteAi. A team pulled from @Harvard and @MIT. $62M raised from @khoslaventures and the @ChanZuckerberg. The goal: simulate cell behavior well enough to design drugs upstream of the lab. On May 5th at 8:50 AM, Micha sits down for a fireside chat at @SynBioBeta. Because if this works, the bottleneck in drug discovery doesn’t just shrink. It moves. Get your tickets here: syntheticbiologysummit.com/?utm_source=Li…
