Why Cryopreservation is No Longer Science Fiction with Until Co-founder and CEO Laura Deming
What if we could pause biological time to wait for a cure for a disease? Thanks to innovations and research in reversible cryopreservation, this possibility is no longer just science fiction. Sarah Guo sits down with Laura Deming, CEO and co-founder of biotech startup Until, to dive deep into the growing field of reversible cryopreservation. Laura talks about how her time as a Thiel Fellow as well as her founding of the Longevity Fund fueled her obsession with solving the “social blindspot” of aging. Laura details how her new startup, Until, seeks to build tools that allow for “pressing pause” on biological time, starting with human organs with the hopes of scaling up to full body medical hibernation. Together, they also discuss why ice is the enemy of tissue, using engineering tools to help solve biological problems, and how this technology may revolutionize organ transplantation by removing time as a variable.
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Chapters:
00:00 – Cold Open
01:08 – Laura Deming Introduction
01:53 – Why Laura Focused on Cryo Preservation and Longevity
06:20 – Bringing on Co-Founder Hunter Davis
07:55 – Until’s Goal
10:10 – Other Use Cases for Cryo Technology
12:22 – Scientific Challenges in Cryo Tech
15:36 – Using Engineering Principles to Solve Biological Problems
20:18 – Scaling Up Cryo Preservation
21:48 – Leading and Recruiting at Until
25:02 – Why Hasn’t Cryo Tech Been Worked On More?
27:14 – Making Time Not a Variable in Organ Transplants
29:06 – Changing How the Molecular World is Depicted
30:47 – Conclusion
20VC: Why Raising A First Time Fund Is Like Raising A Seed Round, Why We Need New and Different Fund Models & Why Longevity Is The Most Rewarding Place To Invest with Laura Deming, Founding Partner @ The Longevity Fund
Laura Deming is Founding Partner @ The Longevity Fund, the first VC firm dedicated to funding high-potential longevity companies. To date, Laura has raised $26m across 2 Longevity funds and has backed the likes of Unity Biotechnology, Precision Biosciences, Metacrine, Navitor, and Alexo Therapeutics. Prior to Longevity, Laura was accepted to MIT at the age of 14 to study physics and then dropped out to join the Thiel Fellowship and start The Longevity Fund. If that wasn't enough, Laura most recently founded Age1, a four-month startup accelerator program focused on founders creating longevity companies.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Laura made her way from studying physics at MIT at just 14 to founding The Longevity Fund and dropping out to join The Thiel Fellowship?
2.) As a 16-year-old, looking to raise a fund to invest in longevity, how was the fundraise process for Laura? Why does Laura believe that raising your first fund is very much like raising a seed round for a company? What was the catalytic moment when the fundraise started to come together? What were the biggest challenges of the raise?
3.) Why does Laura believe that there is a shortage of young biotech founders today? What can be done to solve this and increase pipe? How does Laura find biotech founders compare to more traditional consumer and B2B founders she engages with? How does what they look for from their investor base differ?
4.) Laura has spoken before of "the importance of going against the herd"? How does Laura assess the current landscape for biotech investing? Is Laura concerned to see the entrance of much more traditional VCs into the space? How does Laura look to try and avoid groupthink? What is crucial to this?
5.) How does one need to think about portfolio construction when investing in an inherently riskier biotech space? Does Laura agree with the conventional wisdom around the lack of follow-on funding for biotech companies? How does Laura think about reserve allocation with Longevity today?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Laura's Fave Book: The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain,
Laura's Most Recent Investment: System1
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Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Finding the world's 'lost Einsteins' and the end of aging
In this episode of Product Hunt Radio I'm joined by two incredible people, Laura Deming and Daniel Gross, who have accomplished more before the age of 30 than most people have realized in a lifetime.
Laura grew up in New Zealand and came to San Francisco when she was only 12 years old to join a lab studying aging. She was accepted to MIT at 14 before leaving to form Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm investing in companies aimed to help us all live longer and healthier lives.
Daniel came to the Bay Area from Israel, accepted into Y Combinator in 2010, the youngest founder to go through the program at that time. His startup, Cue, was later acquired by Apple which led him to a leadership position across a number of AI and machine learning teams at the company. He left Apple to work at Y Combinator and recently launched Pioneer, a program to identify and support brilliant people in the world.
In this episode we talk about:
What it was like for Laura and Daniel to move to the Bay Area from overseas.
How Pioneer is aimed to find the “world's lost Einsteins, Marie Curies and Elon Musks”.
Why some animals don't age and how humans might be able to learn from creatures such as the tortoise or the naked mole rat.
The challenges posed by living much longer than humans do now and how society might change as a result.
Why you should sometimes call what you're creating on a project or experiment, rather than a startup.
How to find your passion through experimentation.
Advice Daniel and Laura have for founders and young people looking to start something big.
Of course, we’ll also cover some of our favorite products that you might not know about.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to our sponsors, Airtable, GE Ventures, Intercom and Stripe for their support. 😸
Quotes from This Episode
“The benefit of the Ivy League is not the curriculum, I think Google's an awesome curriculum. The benefit of the Ivy League is the network and the branding.” — Daniel
“There are a hundred versions of me that sent that same email and never got a response — and how many girls are out there who just never got the chance to explore science and grow in that way?” — Laura
“The question is, 'can we build a digital Ivy League campus' — that's truly what we're going at here [at Pioneer].” — Daniel
“Young people can do great work but I think it's really under-appreciated the extent to which that's a real phenomenon.” — Laura
“I think the biggest thing we're fighting with Pioneer is this subtle enemy of self-editing.” — Daniel
“We assume that the number of years we live today is the correct amount, but really it’s optimized for the savannah and different mortality conditions.” — Laura
“All you have to do, if you want to become a Laura Deming or a Ryan Hoover, is you just have to take your passion seriously — no one needs to give you permission.” — Daniel
“We should be able to choose when we die, and that could be later or earlier than it currently is... Everyone in the world should be able to choose how long they want to live, based on their particular circumstances.” — Laura
“We want to bring the power of software to the problem of finding the lost Einsteins.” — Daniel
Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode
Anki— Learn more faster with better flashcards.
Longevity Fund — Investing in companies that will allow us to live longer, healthier, lives.
Nanopore Sequencing — DNA sequencing on a portable device for under $1,000.
Pioneer — An online tournament for productivity.
