

"We’re not focused on profit, our job is to tackle the non-profitable, high risk stuff and pass it on to another company for clinical trials"

What makes the MMTP unique?

Steve - We’re breaking the mould a little bit, traditionally you’d have large groups that produce pretty curves in lifespan studies, but we want to move beyond that; experiments providing meaningful, robust data without getting lost in the noise. We won’t just test 40 mice on the same dosage, one group could take a 3 week course and then nothing for another 6 months, one on high infrequent dosage, one frequent low. We all know what happens with the set dosage from The Scripps senolytics study, there’s no point repeating it.

We also have a sneaky trick up our sleeve, with access to already old mice aged 16-18, the equivalent of about 60 in humans. We can test them without having to wait and house them for a couple of years - cutting costs and focusing on results. We have 60 mice which is a decent cohort, plus a positive caloric restriction cohort, and a normal control. Quality control is important so we don’t waste crucial data. We’re all about high information yield and narrowing down optimum dosages, we wouldn’t gain anything from copying another study. We’re not focused on profit, our job is to tackle the non-profitable, high risk stuff and pass it on to another company for clinical trials. We’re not about getting it to clinical, we can’t do that, but we can speed up the bridge between the two.

Who else is involved?

Steve – Our senior researcher Dr. Alexandra Stolzing is a keen advocate of longevity research and highly skilled in stem cell work. We also benefit from good relationships with breeders and a number of researchers. Dr Josh Mitteldorf is also involved and has designed a computational testing method for us. He has some great ideas too. We’ve also consulted with many other experts who aren’t directly co-operating at this point. We’re not a huge group yet, but we’ll get there.



Let's talk a little bit about your first project senolytics using the drugs Dasatinib and Quercetin

Steve – Lots of research now supports the validity of senolytics. We know it’s not the holy grail, and it might not extend life much but it’s looking like it could help healthspan. These treatments aren’t supposed to be a cure-all, we need combination therapies to tackle the variety of problems. One of our big selling points is combination testing, which very few people have done. Daily low dose quercetin has actually been linked with reduced lifespan, and the evidence with senolytics suggests infrequent, high doses are more effective. You need enough of a dose to kill off these old cells but constant dosing might actually harm you. If we get to run these experiments, these are exactly the kind of questions we’ll answer by testing multiple dosage regimens.

(If you're a bit confused about what senolytics are, read about previous work on senescent cells here and here)