Advantages of Concurrently Investigating Gene Therapies in Dogs and Humans

“From a perspective of gene expression, there's nothing to keep your expression profiles the same once you pass the age when you would typically procreate... there's no evolutionary pressure to keep things regulated. We're hoping that with the tools available today, we can piece something together to effectively reverse events that have occurred over your lifetime.”

Rejuvenate Bio is focused on treating age-related diseases, with an ultimate goal of reversing aging. To this end, they are targeting 3 genes associated with longevity: FGF21, αKlotho, and TGFβ1 in both dogs and humans and developing gene therapies in both populations.

A single dose of Rejuvenate’s gene therapies were able to treat, and in some cases even reverse, a set of age-related diseases in mouse models, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart failure, and renal failure.

GeneTherapyLive spoke with Dan Oliver, cofounder and chief executive officer, Rejuvenate Bio, to learn more about the advantages of investigating the same gene therapies in both dogs and humans in manufacturing and data collection. He also discussed the company’s future plans and research to further their ultimate goal of reversing aging.

REFERENCE

Davidsohn N, Pezone M, Vernet A, et al. A single combination gene therapy treats multiple age-related diseases. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. Nov 2019, 116 (47) 23505-23511. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1910073116