Industry remains largely unconvinced by reverse ageing gene therapy claim

THE head of a biotech company says she has reduced her biological age by 20 years. But those unconvinced say it’s a ‘a new low in medical quackery’.

‘Patient zero’ in fight for immortality or dangerous PR hoax?

THE chief executive of a US biotech company has sparked intense controversy after claiming to be 20 years younger following an experimental gene therapy.

BioViva CEO, Elizabeth Parrish, 45, claims her body’s cells are two decades younger after testing her company’s age-reversing gene therapy on herself.

But industry experts are far from convinced the self described “patient zero” has made such a breakthrough in the scientific quest for immortality.

The exact circumstances of the procedure which took place in September are largely unknown after Ms Parrish travelled to Colombia in order to circumvent US federal regulations. The unconventional move prompted one of the company’s top scientific advisers, George Martin, to quit in protest.

“This is a big problem. I am very upset by what is happening. I would urge lots of preclinical studies,” the University of Washington scientist said at the time.

In the previous months Ms Parrish has been appearing on countless online talk shows and forums to spruik her company’s work, leaving some to speculate news of the procedure was nothing more than an ill conceived publicity stunt.

BioViva says Ms Parrish received two injections of tailor-made viruses as a part of the age-reversing therapy. One was a mycostatin inhibitor, which is expected to prevent age-associated muscle loss.

The other was a telomerase gene therapy, which is expected to lengthen telomeres — the caps at the end of DNA strands that act as buffers against wear and tear.

While the results of the therapy have not been made public, tests last month showed Ms Parrish’s white blood cells were about nine per cent longer.

“If these results are anywhere near accurate, we’ve made ­history,” Ms Parrish said.

The company has since said the test results have been verified by Britain’s Biogeront­ology ­Research Foundation which happens to be headed up by BioViva’s chief scientific officer.

Last week the British institution claimed the company had achieved the first successful human telomere lengthening via gene therapy, potentially paving the way for age reversal therapies.

The procedure has yet to appear in any peer reviewed publications and many experts remain hugely sceptical over the claims.

As the MIT Technology Reviewstated, the stunt is “either a new low in medical quackery or, perhaps, the unlikely start of an era in which people receive genetic modifications not just to treat disease, but to reverse ageing.”

Sydney haematologist John Rasko at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is among those in the medical community to have cast doubt over the company’s potentially specious actions.

“It’s using legitimate science as a veil to confuse people as to what is here and now, and what may be a possibility in the ­future,” he told The Australian last week.

“She’s peddling ideas of ­immortality without any ­evi­dence or quality controls.”

Undeterred by the naysayers and critics, the company is surging ahead and is now raising investment to do offshore clinical trials.