Telocyte

Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results has – with Einstein often incorrectly given as the attribution – been said to define insanity. Whoever said it and whether it defines insanity or not, persistence in the face of failure is remarkably human. When it is successful and insightful, we call it […]

These are heady times for gene therapy, yet we have a long way to go before it achieves its promise. It is, to use an historical analogy, much like where aviation was in the first decade or two of the 20th century. Aviation has a fascinating and ironic history. It was in 1895, only 8 […]

You might be intrigued by an invited paper this week in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, which the editors feel “will change the field”. The paper explains how Alzheimer’s works, why prior trials failed, and offers a novel point of intervention. The paper has already generated more than 100 reprint requests prior to publication. The link to […]

I confess that I’ve yet to find time to continue through each of several age-related diseases. In partial recompense, let me offer the following, which is adapted from the quarterly newsletter that I put out for Telocyte. While it focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, the import is generic, applying to all age-related diseases. How Alzheimer’s works […]

Many of you have written to me, expressing surprise about the lack of public reaction (such as media interest) regarding the potential for telomerase therapy to treat age-related diseases. Some of you wonder why people (and particularly the media) “don’t get it”. I’ve had the same thought for a bit more than two decades now, […]

About a century ago, in a small American town, the first automobile chugged to a stop in front of the general store, where a local man stared at the apparition in disbelief, then asked “where’s your horse?” A long explanation followed, involving internal combustion, pistons, gasoline, and driveshafts. The local listened politely but with growing […]

A physician friend asked if a patient’s APOE status (which alleles they carry, for example APOE4, APOE3, or APOE2) would effect how well they should respond to telomerase therapy. Ideally, it may not make much difference, except that the genes you carry (including the APOE genes and the alleles for each type of APOE gene, […]

Recently, John Cooke at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, showed that telomerase, when expressed in cells from progeric children, caused a “substantial physiologically relevant and meaningful effect on the lifespan and function of the cells.” As many of you know, progeria is a disease in which young children appear old, with baldness and osteoarthritis, and […]

Hardly a day goes by, and never an entire week, without my seeing yet another article, often a cover article, that suggests we will soon cure Alzheimer’s disease. If articles were anything to go by, then the increasing tempo of those articles, to say nothing of the increases in both research and funding, would suggest […]

We waste stunning amounts of money and effort on comprehensively ineffective trials. As a recent article points out, in the past 15 years, there have been 123 Alzheimer drug failures and, while four medicines have been approved, none of them affect the progress of the disease. Symptomatic therapy at best, we have no medications – […]

Perspective often shrinks personal problems. Late Sunday night, I received a cry for help from a woman whose mother has Alzheimer’s disease: she asked me to meet her family and offer professional advice. Their concern was not only her medications, but the ability of her physician, the stress on the family, and the patient’s own […]

The other day, a friend of mine, Liz Parrish, the CEO and founder of BioViva, made quite a splash when she injected herself with a viral vector containing genes for both telomerase and FST. Those in favor of what Liz did applaud her for her courage and her ability to move quickly and effectively in […]

Our new biotechnology company, Telocyte, is moving along, as can be seen in our website. Our mission is simple: we intend to cure Alzheimer’s disease. We have no intention of “ameliorating”, “slowing”, or “improving the care for” Alzheimer’s disease. Instead, our goal is to prevent and cure it entirely. No one should ever have to […]

Many of you have asked about Helen Blau’s work at Stanford, using telomerase mRNA [FASEB Journal]. Helen sent me a copy of her article when it came out and I’m a serious fan of her work. As some of you know from my upcoming book, The Telomerase Revolution, there are four approaches to resetting telomeres: […]

Things are slowly beginning to move ahead on our project to cure Alzheimer’s disease. It’s clear that not only is the role of microglia slowly becoming accepted, but there are more and more investors who see an opportunity to help move biotech and medicine from the old paradigm (BAPP and Tau cause disease) to the […]