Can One Drug Slow Ageing Across the Whole Body? LinkGevity’s Bid to Block Necrosis
What if heart disease, kidney disease and dementia share a common mechanism linked to ageing? And what if blocking a destructive form of cell death called necrosis could help protect several organs at once? In this episode, host Daphna Stern speaks with LinkGevity founders Dr Carina Kern and Serena Kern-Libera about their attempt to develop a new longevity drug targeting necrosis, ageing and age-related disease. Their work challenges the conventional model of drug discovery. Medicine generally treats kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and dementia as separate conditions. LinkGevity is asking whether targeting biology shared across these diseases could protect several organs and systems at once. At the centre of that approach is necrosis: a destructive form of cell death that can spread damage through surrounding tissue. LinkGevity’s lead candidate, Anti-Necrotic™️, is designed to protect cells from the calcium overload that drives this process. The company is preparing for clinical trials in kidney disease, while investigating whether the same mechanism could eventually have wider applications across ageing, organ preservation and tissue engineering. The work has received support from Innovate UK, Horizon Europe, the Francis Crick Institute and the UK Space Agency. LinkGevity was also selected as one of 12 companies for the SPACE-H accelerator, run in collaboration with NASA’s Human Research Program, TRISH and Microsoft Federal. The conversation explores the Blueprint Theory of Ageing, the limitations of treating age-related diseases one at a time, and why the kidney may provide a practical first route into human trials. It also examines what the existing laboratory evidence can—and cannot yet—tell us, what would disprove the company’s theory, and how LinkGevity is trying to separate scientific ambition from longevity hype. Dr Carina Kern is the founder and CEO of LinkGevity, an AI-enabled biotech company developing treatments for ageing and the loss of biological resilience. A geneticist and ageing researcher, she is the architect of the Blueprint Theory of Ageing, an integrative framework connecting evolutionary principles, genetic pathways, molecular mechanisms and clinical medicine. The theory underpins LinkGevity’s AI-driven drug-discovery platform. Serena Kern-Libera is co-founder, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of LinkGevity. Before founding the company with her sister, she worked at Magic Circle law firm Slaughter and May, the Bank of England and HM Treasury, and served as Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Together, they lead a multidisciplinary team based at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge. Their lead programme is initially targeting kidney disease, but its larger ambition is to test whether blocking necrosis could help protect the body against several forms of age-related degeneration. You can find out more here: LinkGevity: www.linkgevity.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkgevity/ X: @CarinaCarlaKern Research papers: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41388… https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202310.1387 Timestamps * 00:00 — Introducing Dr Carina Kern, Serena Kern-Libera and LinkGevity * 02:30 — The family story behind the company * 05:40 — Lifespan, healthspan and the fear of prolonged ill health * 07:30 — Early C. elegans research and publishing findings that challenged convention * 11:00 — From academic research to building a company at Babraham * 13:15 — The Blueprint Theory of Ageing and the case for systems-level medicine * 17:00 — Can ageing be defined and measured well enough to regulate? * 21:30 — What GLP-1 drugs reveal about system-level treatments * 25:00 — Should kidney disease, heart disease and dementia be treated separately? * 27:45 — What the hallmarks of ageing explain—and what they may miss * 31:00 — What would disprove the Blueprint Theory? * 33:20 — Necrosis and apoptosis: two very different forms of cell death * 37:00 — How necrosis can spread tissue damage * 41:00 — Calcium overload and how Anti-Necrotic™️ is designed to work * 45:00 — The laboratory evidence so far * 48:30 — Why necrosis remains a barrier to growing organs in the lab * 52:00 — The route to human trials, beginning with kidney disease * 55:00 — NASA, the UK Space Agency and “cosmic kidneys” * 59:00 — Working with the NHS and the case for a gateway trial * 1:02:30 — Longevity hype, scientific rigour and the risks of the label * 1:06:00 — Is society prepared for a genuine breakthrough in healthspan? * 1:09:00 — What each sister is most afraid of getting wrong * 1:11:00 — Rapid-fire five questions * 1:14:00 — Closing reflections and host takeaway
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