FLICKR, HEY PAUL STUDIOSLast year, Elizabeth Parrish, the CEO of Seattle-based biotech firm BioViva, hopped a plane to Colombia, where she received multiple injections of two experimental gene therapies her company had developed. One is intended to lengthen the caps of her chromosomes (called telomeres) while the other aims to increase muscle mass. The idea is that together these treatments would “compress mortality,” Parrish told The Scientist, by staving off the diseases of aging—enabling people to live healthier, longer.
On its website last week (April 22), BioViva reported the first results of Parrish’s treatment: the telomeres of her leukocytes grew longer, from 6.71 kb in September 2015 to 7.33 kb in March 2016. The question now is: What does that mean?
The company announced Parrish’s response as success against human aging, having “reversed 20 years of normal telomere shortening.”
Over the phone, Parrish was more measured in discussing the implications of the finding, which has not yet undergone peer review. “The best-case scenario would be that we added 20 years of health onto the leukocytes, and the immune system might be more productive and catch more of the bad guys,” she said. “But we have to wait and find out. The proof will be ...
