Elizabeth Parrish, the CEO of BioViva USA Inc, a biotechnology company that “aims to provide regenerative medicine to the masses through gene and cell therapies,” claims to be the first person in history to have successfully reversed one of the hallmark signs of aging with the company’s experimental gene therapy.
Elizabeth Parrish is 44, the tough-gunning, sharp-talking CEO of a life-sciences startup, and seemingly full of life herself. But she says she suffers from a deadly disease. Hoping to stave off the sickness, Parrish recently journeyed to a clinic in Colombia, where she underwent a course of therapy that the FDA hasn’t touched with a 10-foot pole. One treatment would alter her telomeres — the stuff at the end of her DNA. The other would inhibit a protein that stops muscle growth.
Can aging be slowed by using gene therapy to make permanent changes to a person’s DNA?
Read MoreNow in 2016 it is becoming increasingly clear that therapies are emerging which could seriously impact aspects of the human aging process.
One of the most cutting-edge therapies that are now being tested is the use of viral vectors to lengthen telomeres, the DNA caps at the end of our chromosomes. Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of the company Bioviva USA inc, is the first person to treat human aging with this technology, using herself as a test subject.
Contrary to much buzz within the anti-aging field, this is certainly a valid treatment for a part of the aging problem in organisms, by preventing DNA from shortening. Back in 2012 this experiment was first set up in mice by Maria Blasco et al, using adeno viruses to lengthen telomeres in mice. The treated mice lived longer on average with no increased cancer rates, showing proof of principle.
Read MoreIn a bold and courageous move Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of Bioviva USA inc. became the first human to be treated with two gene therapies that her company has developed, one to lengthen her telomeres and one to prevent aging-related loss in muscle mass. With this move, she follows the footsteps of other courageous scientists, such as […]
Read MoreThe CEO of Bioviva USA Inc., Elizabeth Parrish, became the first person to undergo rejuvenative gene therapy in 2015, and results are now out – the procedure successfully lengthened her telomeres by the equivalent of 20 years.
Read MoreIn September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of BioViva USA Inc. Elizabeth Parrish received two of her own company’s experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age, another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities.
The treatment was originally intended to demonstrate the safety of the latest generation of the therapies. But if early data is accurate, it is already the world’s first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual. Gene therapy has been used to lengthen telomeres before in cultured cells and in mice, but never in a human patient.
Read MoreChanging disease through genetic therapies. We work on anti aging / age reversing gene therapies to mitigate the diseases of old age. BioViva Sciences - the cure is the the Helix of Humanity.
