Free Radicals

Interviewing visionaries dedicated to giving humanity control over biology. All problems are solvable, including aging and death.

Free Radicals is a science podcast hosted by Daniel Shur and Eric Dai, with 29 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Daniel Shur and Eric Dai hosts Free Radicals, a science show with 29 episodes published.

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  Free Radicals

  The golden age for humanity is within our sights - Dr. Derya Unutmaz

  Aug 18, 20261h 15m

  Twenty years ago, Dr. Derya Unutmaz predicted we would reverse aging by 2045. People thought he was crazy. Now, he thinks he was too conservative, and has moved the date up to 2040 because AGI arrived earlier than he expected. I sat down with Derya to ask if such bold predictions are too fatalistic. Is the future guaranteed? Shall we just sit back and wait for AI to save us? Derya disagreed. The golden age for humanity is within our sights, but there is much work to be done. Academia is failing us. If it doesn’t adapt to the pace of progress AI enables, we have no shot at curing aging this century. And we need to invest trillions into collecting the data that superintelligence will need to solve biology. There is much work to be done, but if we pull it off, the future can be brighter than anyone imagines. Dr. Derya Unutmaz is a Jackson Laboratory immunologist whose roughly 190 scientific publications have been cited more than 30,000 times. Special thank you to Adam Gries and vitalismfoundation.org for hosting us at Vitalist Bay!

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  Free Radicals

  Stop optimizing your health and start campaigning against aging - Andrew Steele, Activist & Author

  Aug 4, 20261h 19m

  Health podcasts are probably shortening your life expectancy. Not just because of the health anxiety they create, but because that time could instead be spent writing a letter to your congressperson. Aging kills 85% of Americans, and the US spends $15-20 per person per year on cancer research but only $1 on aging biology. No amount of zone 2 and sauna are going to save you from that gap. I sat down with Andrew Steele, scientist, author of Ageless , and founder of the Longevity Initiative, to talk about closing it. His position: if he had $10M to spend on his own longevity, he'd spend every dollar on policy and communication, because that's where the leverage is. With health systems pushed to their limits and demographic crises looming, the time is right to organize against aging. Andrew is a phenomenal communicator, and played a huge role in inspiring me to start this podcast. You’re gonna love listening to him, and I highly recommend you follow him as well. Special thank you to Adam Gries and vitalismfoundation.org for hosting us at Vitalist Bay!

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  Free Radicals

  The $101M XPRIZE to restore function by 10 - 20 years - Jamie Justice

  Jul 21, 202651 min

  Reprogramming molecules are getting dosed into patients for the first time, with the goal of restoring function lost due to aging. I‘ve had over 30 recorded conversations about the longevity space and didn’t realize this is happening so soon! We sat down with Dr. Jamie Justice, the geroscientist running the $101M XPRIZE Healthspan competition, and she told us there are five teams pursuing reprogramming, and hundreds pursuing other approaches. The $101M prize is to be awarded to teams that can restore muscle, cognitive, and immune function by 10 to 20 years. We discussed how the longevity field has a serious hype problem. We‘ve found hundreds of interventions that can extend lifespan in model organisms (reprogramming among them) and yet none have been translated into humans.The XPRIZE is changing that, by challenging the field to get out of the lab and into the clinic. $101M for those that can show results now, not in a decade, is a huge incentive to turn the hype into reality.

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  Free Radicals

  How DARPA prepares for AI-designed bioweapons & is accelerating progress towards longevity biotech - Dr. Mike Koeris, DARPA Director

  Jul 7, 202650 min

  AI is accelerating the pace of progress for benevolent scientists and nefarious actors alike. We discuss how DARPA is preparing to defend agriculture & civilians from novel biological threats, and why such defense requires training foundation models for biology. We also dive into why DARPA is betting on blood as the operating system for the body, lessons from GLP-1s for human enhancement, how to create computers out of neurons, and much more. Dr. Michael Koeris directs DARPA's Biological Technologies Office (BTO), the group that leverages biological properties and processes to revolutionize our ability to protect the nation’s warfighters. Prior to DARPA, Dr. Koeris was a highly successful biotech entrepreneur, holds over a dozen patents, and was a professor of bioprocessing. DARPA is a research & development agency within the Department of War. Created in response to the launch of Sputnik in 1957, DARPA represents America’s commitment to never again face a strategic technical surprise. The agency has funded many transformational technologies, including mRNA vaccines which were pivotal during COVID.

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  Free Radicals

  Replacement & Biostasis: radical approaches for solving aging - Kris Borer, Author & Investor

  Jun 30, 20261h 16m

  Kris Borer is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and author of the new book Radical Life Extension . We discuss why Kris rejects incrementalist approaches to radical life extension, and his argument that supplement, lifestyle interventions and small-molecule "geroscience" drugs offer only minor improvements at best to life span. We cover the four part plan to cure aging spanning traditional drugs, advanced bioengineering, tissue/organ replacement, and biostasis (cryopreservation), and we dive deep for the first time on the podcast into replacement: body transplants, lab-grown organs, chimeric organ donors and even... brain replacement. Resources & Links: Kris’s Book: Radical Life Extension Longevity Biotech Fellowship Repair Biotechnologies The Economic Laws of Scientific Research Tomorrow Biostasis

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