Jacob Kimmel, the Co-founder & President of NewLimit, thinks he can find the transcription factors to reverse aging. We do a deep dive on why this might be plausible and why evolution hasn’t already optimized for longevity. We also talk about why drug discovery has been getting exponentially harder, and what a new platform for biological understanding to speed up progress would look like. As a bonus, we get into the nitty gritty of gene delivery and Jacob’s controversial takes on CAR-T cells.

For full disclosure, I am an angel investor in NewLimit. This did not impact my decision to interview Jacob, not the questions I asked him.

Watch on YouTube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Timestamps

00:00:00 – Three reasons evolution didn’t optimize for longevity

00:12:07 – Why didn't humans evolve their own antibiotics?

00:25:26 – De-aging cells via epigenetic reprogramming

00:44:43 – Viral vectors and other delivery mechanisms

01:06:22 – Synthetic transcription factors

01:09:31 – Can virtual cells break Eroom’s Law?

01:31:32 – Economic models for pharma