Telocyte Newsletter, Q1 2025: Cure the Incurable

In early 2024, I was editor and senior author of an Elsevier Press book on aging and on the prospects for reversing aging at the most fundamental cellular levels in order to cure and prevent age-related disease. A similar, updated book is planned for publication in conjunction with our planned phase 1 FDA trials.

While much of our work hinges upon access to funding, cutting edge technology, and a wealth of esoteric data on cell function, the aging process, and gene therapy, the underlying motif is the importance of systems thinking rather than an emphasis on data per se. Too often, we focus on a narrow “component view” of biology, medicine, and even AI. All of these have an impact on our goals at Telocyte, yet we take a broader view in understanding the cascade of processes – the system – rather than merely measured outcomes. In aging, for example, there is an overwhelming tendency to focus a tight spotlight on biomarkers, while giving no attention to the overall process which results in such biomarkers. We can’t, for example, attribute aging to mitochondrial (or immune system, AGE, histone, methylation, or nucleolar) changes without asking what more fundamental process triggers and underlies such changes. We need a broader view of the process as a whole rather than merely parts of the process. Waving one’s hands and claiming that “aging just happens” or “aging is merely entropy” ignores the more nuanced system, the complex cascade of processes that results in the final, observed biomarker changes.

Much the same concern has been raised with regard to not only medicine, but the overall system of medical care and its delivery on a national level. This concern was nicely explored in a recent JAMA article published two weeks ago, titled “Enter the Physicianeers—How They Will Transform Health Care”. This approach, common to an engineering mind, assumes that any part of the system needs to be understood not as a stand-alone, local problem, but as part of a greater gestalt. Complex engineering doesn’t fail merely because of a single part, but because of the role that part plays in the context of the entire system; complex healthcare doesn’t fail merely because of a single agent, but because of the part that agent plays in the context of the broader healthcare system. Whether we address complex engineering problems, global healthcare failures, or age-related disease, we need to move on from reductionism, and embrace systems thinking as we are doing at Telocyte.

Systems thinking is critical to success, but what do we mean by success? Step back and take a broader and more patient-centric view of success. What is our goal? Telocyte’s primary mission isn’t “dividing the pie more equitably”, but providing a better, larger, and less costly pie. We aim to provide effective cures for diseases that have been here-to-fore seen as tragic, fatal, and completely hopeless.

Our goal is to cure the incurable.