Cryonics Revival Scenarios & Potential Roadmaps & Hypotheses

🎯 This article by Andrew Steele , for BBC Science Focus Magazine

argues that billionaires’ flashy longevity experiments (Altman’s metformin, Thiel’s parabiosis interest, Johnson’s “Blueprint,” LeBron’s oxygen tanks, etc.) are unlikely to extend their lives meaningfully, because the real drivers of longevity for the wealthy are the same boring, widely available factors that help everyone: not smoking, good diet, exercise, low stress, and healthcare.

His central point, which I support, is that genuine anti-ageing breakthroughs won’t come from self-experimentation but from properly funded clinical trials, which are badly underfunded. Some biohacking practices (young-blood transfusions, extreme caloric restriction, sprawling supplement stacks) may even be harmful, partly because combined interventions can interact dangerously.

He also notes that most billionaires don’t actually behave as if breakthroughs are imminent. Few invest in longevity science (Bezos’s ~$3bn stake in Altos Labs is only ~1% of his wealth), and Elon Musk openly opposes life extension.

The irony is that a relatively small investment ($45–70m for a metformin trial; $1bn for 10–20 trials of candidates like rapamycin, acarbose, canagliflozin, and senolytics) could add healthy years for billions of people, including the funders themselves. Drugs like metformin are cheap generics, so no one profits from proving they work, which is why the trials go unfunded.

This is exactly why, at LongeVC, we back actual science and clinical results rather than biohacking.

Take Rubedo Life Sciences, for example. In March they reported preliminary Phase 1 results for RLS-1496, the first GPX4 modulator ever tested in humans and the first drug specifically targeting cellular rejuvenation to reach human trials. It’s a topical senolytic designed to clear senescent “aged” cells.

Then there’s Insilico Medicine, whose strategy is a masterclass in doing this the disciplined way. Rather than chasing one anti-aging pill, they treat aging as a stack of distinct failures (e.g. senescence, fibrosis, metabolic decline, neurodegeneration, etc) and build a separate drug for each. Every program has to stand on its own first: a defined disease, measurable endpoints, trials, regulators. Only after those molecules reach clinical validation does the aging thesis come in, via combinations aimed at a systems-level effect. The downside is bounded by real, approved medicine; the upside is open-ended.

And it’s working commercially. Insilico just signed a deal worth up to $600M with Takeda ($60M upfront) to run AI-driven discovery across Takeda’s therapeutic areas, on top of a recent streak that includes a potential $2.75B partnership with Eli Lilly, a $2.5B deal with SK Biopharm, and an $888M pact with Servier.

The takeaway from Steele’s piece is that longevity progress needs properly funded, properly run science. That is in line with my philosophy and actions.