148: Wrinkle in Time? OneSkin’s Alessandra Zonari Says Not Anymore

[00:00:00] Karl: Dr. Alessandra Sonari of One Skin. We are so thrilled to have you on

[00:00:05] Karl: the Grow Everything podcast.

[00:00:07] Alessandra: I'm beyond excited to be here talking to you again, Carl, and to you, Aaron. I'm very excited for this conversation.

[00:00:15] Karl: Thank you so much.

[00:00:16] Karl: So in getting into your background, and we're gonna get into it, you've described yourself as a scientist who is driven by a personal mission. And since our listen. May not know your story. you're gonna explain that you grew up in Brazil. You had seen some age-related diseases in your family, I believe.

[00:00:36] Karl: How did that shape the path for you in terms of becoming a scientist and also co-founding

[00:00:41] Karl: one skin?

[00:00:42] Alessandra: Yeah,

[00:00:43] Alessandra: so as you said, I grew up in Brazil, a small family. we were in a small town in Brazil, so it was basically me and my sister and my parents. I didn't have my grandparents from my father's side because they had passed early on in their lives by, cardiovascular disease. Cancer. I had a lot of other cancer cases in my dad's side.

[00:01:04] Alessandra: on my mom. My grandfather, when I was 10 years old, he also had pancreatic cancer. and my grandmother was already later on starting to have dementia and , when I was little age 10 years, I was. Always afraid of getting old. I was like, this thing of aging, I'll be sick. I will die. I was afraid that my parents will die early as my grandparents had, they would get a disease.

[00:01:31] Alessandra: And that shaped me to getting to study biology. So I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be discovering something, trying to discover the cure of cancer or trying to clone, my family. I was. 11, 12 years old, with all the cloning coming up, I would've call my parents and that's the solution.

[00:01:51] Alessandra: Maybe I would call myself and I was, very funny and creative and all of that. So that was what shaped me to go to college and study biology and then. Research stem cells during my master's and PhDs. and I was always focusing my research on that time in academia, on more on the regeneration, I'm trying to fix things and was only at one skin, that my mindset changed and shift to more understanding aging and being more preventative.

[00:02:25] Alessandra: And the things that we can do to help ourselves, that I do not need to be afraid of my genetics. There's more than we can do, and that completely changed my mind. I felt more empowered about researching even, any

[00:02:40] Alessandra: part about my personal life as well.

[00:02:42] Erum: Wow. Yeah. Thanks

[00:02:43] Erum: for sharing your story. and I relate to it. I have family, history where my parents, have been sick. My, my father passed away, my grandparents all because of cardiovascular cancer, all the things that you have mentioned. So, I feel that. Sense of concern about, our own aging.

[00:03:02] Erum: and aging has been taking a lot of different, perspectives over the year. and a lot has started in the world of skincare, which is the world that once, skin once in, and many people think that skincare is surface level beauty, it's just something like on your face and you put makeup on it and that's it.

[00:03:22] Erum: Your position at one skin is that your skin is a window into cellular health and longevity. So walk us through that connection. How does targeting cellular senescence and describe that a little bit for us. How does targeting that process cellular senescence in our largest organ connect to our broader health span?

[00:03:42] Erum: And how do you communicate that science in a way that resonates with consumers while saying

[00:03:47] Erum: true to the research?

[00:03:48] Alessandra: Yeah, so I

[00:03:50] Alessandra: mean, I was telling you that I was researching stem cells in academia and we wanted to cure diseases, right? And when we started one skin, what really. Excited us is that, to find a cure of cancer is very hard. the steps to go through the number of research, animal testing, and then FDA, it's a lot of work and needs.

[00:04:13] Alessandra: Billions of dollars of investment for research. we started to realize that the skin, because it's our largest organ, has a huge contribution to the aging process. Not only because of your appearance, because we want to look good about our skin, but the function of the skin. Throughout the aging process, it's important to maintain our health.

[00:04:38] Alessandra: And when that realization came out, we start, okay. There's something more interesting to research on skin that goes beyond the beauty space and that's really, science and can improve health. So when we are aging and doesn't matter, like if I'm talking about the skin or heart or our whole body accumulates damage, and these damaged cells we call zombie cells.

[00:05:03] Alessandra: They secrete inflammation and they start like, spreading disin inflammation and degradating the surrounding tissue. So this is happening when we are getting older and the consequences of having a lot of those doby cells on your body. Is that you have more inflammation and deterioration of that tissue.

[00:05:23] Alessandra: So for the skin stop being that strong barrier for your body. Because the skin has this function of a protective barrier, it also regulates water temperature and starts then accumulating more inflammation. And if your skin is getting more, damage throughout aging and accumulation of the cells.

[00:05:44] Alessandra: Because of its size. We believe that this inflammation can help, can be driving more of the chronic diseases that happens with aging. So our approach for looking at the skin is like if we keep our skin healthier throughout life, we're able to help our body to be on a better state. And maybe this can help us reduce the chances of, starting chronic diseases later on in our lives.

[00:06:12] Alessandra: Yeah,

[00:06:12] Karl: that's amazing. And, you and one skin hip been called pioneers of skin longevity. and longevity is a space that is very hot. , We've been talking about it a fair amount here on Grow Everything, but how do you see the space evolving as more companies enter the territory?

[00:06:30] Karl: And what makes,longevity, true longevity science, how's it separate from just

[00:06:37] Karl: marketing spin.

[00:06:38] Alessandra: Yeah.

[00:06:39] Alessandra: I love to see now finally skin longevity, getting more mainstream because,we started the company in 2016 and in our first years we would talk about skin longevity and people would like, what are you talking about? and now we see we were. investing on the right thing of researching skin aging through this lens of longevity, that for me, what it means, it's really keeping your skin healthier for longer.

[00:07:05] Alessandra: So for really doing that, your product needs to be, somehow targeting. One of the hallmarks of aging. Otherwise, you're not doing skin longevity, right? It's just because your skin is more hydrated. This is not skin longevity. So a lot of companies now just label the product Skin longevity serum.

[00:07:27] Alessandra: And it's, vitamin C serum. it's just a changing the marketing world, but what it's behind that the real longevity needs to have science that is around one of the hallmarks of aging. And the way the consumer can understand that, because it can be a little bit difficult, it's really trying to see, okay, they're talking about longevity and they're saying that they have science.

[00:07:51] Alessandra: What's behind there is any kind of real publication. There are scientists in the team. What is behind that brand? Those words, science and skin longevity that I can, okay. Trust that there's some research

[00:08:09] Alessandra: here being done.

[00:08:10] Erum: Yeah, absolutely. And through

[00:08:11] Erum: your research, we, have talked about, and you mentioned cellular senescence and the solution that you arrived at was creating a peptide. So can you talk to us a little bit more about how a peptide, affects cellular senescence, and could you share a moment when you realized that this was more than just a skincare ingredient, that this was a breakthrough that's going to help

[00:08:33] Erum: with our skin lifespan?

[00:08:36] Alessandra: So to, answer

[00:08:37] Alessandra: to your question, I would just go through how we start to screen to get to this, novel peptide. We started the company like building a platform, , growing the lab. Skin tissue from different ages so we can understand the aging process and what's driving the aging process.

[00:08:55] Alessandra: And when we start testing some products in the market, we were seeing that they were not targeting, they were not reducing what's causing aging on the skin. A lot of them was even. More pro aging, like increasing inflammation than actually benefiting your skin, which was terrifying. So what we did to find that this OS one peptide was do a screening, look for molecules, novel molecules that specifically would reduce one hallmark of aging.

[00:09:27] Alessandra: That's the senescent cells. So specifically we were designing a molecule to now. Target the accumulation of this damage in the skin to reduce this inflammation that's accumulating on the skin. And what would be the result that we were expecting is that if we reduce at the cellular level, this inflammation and this damage, your skin would be able to repair better, to have a better skin barrier, to produce more collagen.

[00:09:57] Alessandra: So that was all our hypothesis. And then we were seeing that there was no. In market specifically targeting that. So we went through a process, took us two years to do validation We identified over 900 peptides that we screen this one that we called OS one peptide that we saw that could reduce the inflammation that the senescent cells secrete and can reduce the accumulation of more of those zombie cells, more of things that we don't want on the skin.

[00:10:30] Alessandra: and then when we saw this data in the lab. The next question because the result when we compared in the lab, when we treat on skin was very clear. Like the skin reduced markers of s and s and thenincreased skin barrier function and increased collagen. the question was, if we formulate this into a cream.

[00:10:49] Alessandra: Will people see the benefits on visible signs of aging? and when we start to apply this topically and see the changes on the skin, after the use of the product was when we were like, wow, we have something here. let's continue. Let's bring

[00:11:06] Alessandra: this to the market.

[00:11:07] Karl: And, before I ask the next question, it took you guys a while to get from, the skin samples to discovering the OS one peptide to actually bringing a product to the market. just, so for the entrepreneurs and investors in our audience,

[00:11:25] Karl: How long did the process

[00:11:26] Karl: take before you guys came on the market?

[00:11:28] Alessandra: Yeah, the process

[00:11:29] Alessandra: took us five years. So we started the company in 2016. We started, doing this platform for screening. We started screening skin aging, and testing different products. And then we started to look for novel molecules. We identified this OS one we validated in vitro. We formulated, we did a clinical study that we brought into the market.

[00:11:54] Alessandra: It took us five years, which for a skincare product, it's a lot. For a therapeutic approach, it's fast. So if we were going to like try to cure a disease or prevent a disease with the molecule, we would take like 15 years to go through all the process and get into the market. So the route of the skin and being cosmetic and Topco application was a way that expedited the process for us as a scientist to bring this technology.

[00:12:27] Alessandra: from the banks to a product

[00:12:29] Alessandra: and into the market.

[00:12:30] Karl: That's amazing.

[00:12:32] Karl: I mean, I just think it shows so much about. How long it actually takes things to get to market. And I like the comparison that you made is if,comparing like a beauty product or a cosmetic product to the amount of time it takes to get to market with, Pharmaceutical product, it takes so much longer.

[00:12:50] Karl: Now, one thing that I've always loved about Wineskin is you guys have built this company with radical transparency around your science. If you go to the website, you're gonna see lots of science. You're gonna see a lot of peer reviewed articles. You're, one of the lead authors on many of those.

[00:13:07] Karl: And we live in this world where consumers are increasingly skeptical, not just of science, but of beauty claims. How do you balance that scientific accuracy with the need to really be clear

[00:13:18] Karl: about communicating benefits?

[00:13:20] Alessandra: Yeah, this

[00:13:21] Alessandra: is a very challenging approach and we always like seeking help and we are evolving, getting better on that. The way we always approach when we are launching a product, we get the data. First, and then we create the claims of this product based on the data that we have. So if we are saying that increased firmness, it's because we have data in vitro that we have more collagen being produced.

[00:13:45] Alessandra: We have a clinical study that was measured that the firmness of the skin is improving. So the process of our claims, it's created like. Data first and then we get the claims. And then for communicating this to the consumers, to be able to approach more of the consumers. We need to start with the claims that they are more familiar to listen to.

[00:14:06] Alessandra: And then if they want to go deep, every single claim they can find in our website the substantiation of why we are saying that. So the process that we do. We first start with the science, create the claims, but then for the consumers we try to show the claims first, a language that they understand better.

[00:14:26] Alessandra: And then,go more deep in the science. We also, When we started launching our first product literally was only scientists in the team. So we start very heavily on sewing for the science, and we are so proud of the science we wanna sew. You see it reduce inflammation by 45% and this is good for your skin That's sometimes like, it's interesting and those graphs and those results and those data, it's interesting for a scientist, but can be so distant from a consumer that can scare the consumer. So we have been evolving to be more, okay, let's talk about what the consumer wants, right? They first want to see the benefits on their skin, and then we will educate why, this benefits is attached to something.

[00:15:14] Alessandra: That you cannot see, but it's happening because

[00:15:17] Alessandra: we have this technology.

[00:15:19] Erum: Yeah. I mean, the beauty space is so noisy and there are a lot of products that make claims that are. Confusing to consumers because some of them are marketing claims and then some of them are scientific claims. But what I found with One Skin and I was introduced to one skin, word of mouth.

[00:15:39] Erum: The first, the one, someone mentioned one skin to me, they actually sent me a paper first. Like I didn't get the website. I had gotten the paper that you wrote, and it was all the data in there. And I was like, okay, this is legit. this is actually very interesting to see. and once again has.

[00:15:54] Erum: Own this concept of cellular senescence, at least bringing it to the table, bringing it to the market. there are other companies that are using this language. So sorry this isn't a question, but I'm, now, I'm just curious to ask like, how do you navigate when other companies, bigger brands are like talking about senescence and how do you differentiate?

[00:16:16] Erum: Because it is a very complex. Hallmark. So, we always think of you first. Anytime I hear sene, I think of ones skin. I think a lot of people do. But we'll love to hear a, how it helped one skin first get to specific audience and how you do you think about continuing to own this concept and differentiating from others who are

[00:16:36] Erum: trying to come in on senescence.

[00:16:39] Alessandra: Yeah,

[00:16:39] Alessandra: we do see, a lot of the longevity community, biotech community, they have been seeing one skin like for years talking about sellers and essence and showing the papers and showing the results. So it's an audience that kind of, if they see another one, they will be more. Skeptical about what the other ones are saying than like what one skin.

[00:17:01] Alessandra: But the reality is that the beauty space is growing and more attention is giving to the senescent cells, which I love. I love to see, I want to see more, research and sellers senescence, more ways of targeting sellers, senescence, and some companies are doing the research. Others are just using the buzz word Just to get on the trend. I think like again, it all comes down to being able to prove and to show with transparency that claimant that result. So having all those scientific papers, that's like a proof that we did the research, that we are understanding what we're talking. a lot of companies will be having senescence cells, zombie cells on their claims, but if you will scroll their page.

[00:17:47] Alessandra: There is just words there. If there is research, they will be proud to show that. And I give credit to that. I think we will not be the only company in the world that will have a product targeting cell essence. but it's all about like seeing if that real research exists or if just words

[00:18:07] Alessandra: on a website.

[00:18:09] Karl: Yeah, makes sense.

[00:18:11] Karl: so you guys made this biotech discovery. You identified this peptide and we know, and we talk about it all the time, going from biotech discovery and scaling that into any kind of product. Particularly a consumer product is very challenging. Can you tell us, Alessandra, like what were the biggest challenges that you faced in moving from the lab to the beauty shelf, and what do you think would've made it easier or faster for you?

[00:18:37] Karl: What do you wish you knew along the way?

[00:18:39] Alessandra: Ah, there's so

[00:18:40] Alessandra: many different type of challenges, I think for any entrepreneur that's trying to, to bring their product with science to the market, the product needs to target a clear. Need of the consumer and they need to feel the results of that product, of using that product. So from starting to produce our first product and bring to the market, as I mentioned the beginning, we were still only scientists.

[00:19:09] Alessandra: So we started with the route of, we had no marketers, no one helping that much in marketing. and that was a hard thing. But also a positive thing was hard because we could not get to mainstream yet, but was good because we were on a niche type of consumers. They were loving to see what we were showing.

[00:19:31] Alessandra: but, I think if we had someone in the beginning or helping us to make the science more easy and digestible, maybe the early days would be, more easy for us to. Even to bring this word senescent sales to more people back in 2021 when we launched the product. So I feel that having more of like a marketing mindset, we did not have that for launching, but could have helped us to simplify our message

[00:20:01] Alessandra: in the beginning.

[00:20:02] Erum: Yeah. a

[00:20:03] Erum: lot of learning. I'm sure. cause there's a lot of different disciplines. You're converging, right? You sit in this intersection of biotech, beauty, longevity, science, and they're different domains. And so, which of these worlds has been the hardest to convince when it comes to, senescence and, the science that's being, derived or being generated at one skin?

[00:20:29] Erum: How have you built trust across them, across beauty, across

[00:20:33] Erum: biotech and longevity?

[00:20:34] Alessandra: So each of

[00:20:35] Alessandra: these spaces, they're interested in one thing, like the beauty space. They want the before and afters. They wanna see the clear result, the visible signs. That's what's more important. So if you don't have like that big, difference on before and after. It's hard for them, oh, should I use this product or not?

[00:20:53] Alessandra: In the longevity they're more interested, they understand more the hallmarks of aging and they understand more the long terms. And when we bring data, that shows. body, one of our clinical studies that we show like, okay, if you are able to restore your skin barrier, you are also like reducing inflammation systemically.

[00:21:14] Alessandra: That's longevity. And that's like really conveys the longevity community, the biotech. It's a community that's driven on curing diseases. That's a hard one because it was hard to show them that the importance of skin for the overall health. I remember in the beginning, before we launched the product, we were in this biotech space and one colleague from another biotech company said to me, Alessandro, if you are.

[00:21:42] Alessandra: Launching a skincare product, why you're investing so much in research. And I was like, you're not getting it.

[00:21:49] Alessandra: It's because we need, we needed the research. It's missing in that space. And they were like, use this resource. to cure skin cancer. And I believe that if we keep our skin healthier.

[00:22:00] Alessandra: We may probably have less skin cancer in the future. so the biotech, I think hard because they're in the mechanism and they want like, More that sense of curing something. So when we're talking about sometimes long term for biotech can be a little bit challenging. So that's the challenge with biotech.

[00:22:23] Alessandra: I think the longevity community , was the first one to be easier. And then the beauty, once you show good before and afters, you get the attention and you start educating. They get very interested on the longevity side

[00:22:37] Alessandra: of the skin.

[00:22:38] Karl: Yeah.

[00:22:38] Karl: That's amazing. one of the things that we see, and one Skin was a pioneer in this, was,using a peptide to,impart a function or impart some kind of health benefit. We've seen this kind of increase in peptides. My wife even said to me, everybody knows what peptides are.

[00:22:57] Karl: And then I asked her, what's a peptide? And she kind of knew, but not really. A lot of people don't know what peptides are, and yet you see it on all sorts of beauty products. just thinking ahead, like if we were to have this conversation in 10 years, what do you think the role of peptides would be around cellular health?

[00:23:14] Karl: Not just in skincare, but in this larger,

[00:23:17] Karl: longevity movement.

[00:23:19] Alessandra: I

[00:23:19] Alessandra: think that peptides, it's an incredible category of molecule because it's extremely safe. It can give a message. To the cells to communicate with the tissue to behave in a certain way. I see that peptides will be increasing in the beauty, but also on overall health for longevity, either if it's injectables or other ways of delivery, peptides for other functions.

[00:23:47] Alessandra: What I do. I think it'll happen in 10 years. It's that we will understand more how each person responds to the peptides and where they are on this longevity, Phase of your life because we talk a lot. Okay. It's not that because I'm 38 years old that my body is biologically 38 years old.

[00:24:11] Alessandra: It can be a little bit younger or older, depending on a lot of my habits and lifestyle. and different approaches with peptides. Can respond better or worse is that person needs more or less of what that peptide is doing. So I think more of that,diagnostic and some measures of biomarkers to help people to, okay, these are the right peptides for you.

[00:24:37] Alessandra: These are the right doses. It's what the trend will be going on

[00:24:41] Alessandra: the next 10 years.

[00:24:43] Erum: Yeah. Wow. That was the best explanation of peptides. I have heard. wow. it's so incredible and I hope people heard that, peptides send a message to cells to behave in a certain way The fact that, look, we talked about it before and you said it again.

[00:24:58] Erum: Personalized therapeutics or products, personalized products are around the corner, how does that scale up? That's a whole business question, but it is doable. I mean once people start learning Yeah. This diagnostic approach you can get assessed and that everyone's skin is different than.

[00:25:17] Erum: You can't, like, just ignore it and just take, you know, one, solution. It doesn't fit all. and this is great because it leads into my next question and it's clear because, beyond one skin, you're becoming quite the thought leader in longevity science communications. Brilliant. where do you think science companies most often miss the mark in telling their science story to consumers

[00:25:41] Erum: or to investors?

[00:25:43] Alessandra: I think a

[00:25:43] Alessandra: lot of time as the scientist and looking back to our journey, we are so focused on the details of the data, on like explaining small, oh, this, the control, this, was the baseline. Now what my product Just lose the tension of either the consumer or investor, they want to know like, what's the endpoint result of that?

[00:26:04] Alessandra: And then you explain how the science helps to get to that endpoint. So in the beauty space, if you are not able to show that, it will improve the appearance of the skin. And then you explain how it's improving. How different is this from the other products? You may lose the consumer when you start to say, Hey, it's an essence load is being reduced by 25%.

[00:26:32] Alessandra: and so I think it goes from. Being clear on the benefit that people will perceive. And then after that, explain the science. The benefits needs to come first, and then the science, the more digestible you can break down. And then you go into layers, there are layers of methods. So once you educate the person, you can talk more deep.

[00:26:57] Alessandra: But if you start from the deep side of the science, you may lose a lot of interest in,

[00:27:04] Alessandra: either

[00:27:04] Alessandra: investors or consumers.

[00:27:06] Karl: Yeah, that is

[00:27:07] Karl: spoken like a true scientist who's had to take a product to the market. unless you've done it, you might not have the idea. we talk about this all the time. I'm here at Messaging Lab. It's what keeps up the lights on in our business scientists who need to be able to tell their story better.

[00:27:23] Karl: And Alessandra, you've lived it. So, there's a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are junk scientists. They're entrepreneurs, they're interested in translating this deep science like you guys did into everyday products. What's your advice? What would you tell them if they want to navigate both credibility

[00:27:41] Karl: and consumer appeal?

[00:27:43] Alessandra: I think the credibility, if

[00:27:44] Alessandra: they're doing science, the credibility will exist, because the science will give that, the thing is,is that science is, that's Solving a novel problem that people really need. That it's an unmet problem in the market, that there's no solution. You're better than the competitors.

[00:28:02] Alessandra: This needs to be very clear because. If you are doing something that's very similar to a competitor no one wants, then it will be harder to you to break into the market and the focus should be like on getting that product that will fill the need of the customer and then the credibility, because if the science was done, the credibility will come after.

[00:28:27] Alessandra: So you,don't need to worry that much about showing that piece first. But to really, having a good product that people will want to use, that's easy to use, that they

[00:28:40] Alessandra: will see the benefits of using it.

[00:28:42] Erum: Yes.

[00:28:43] Erum: Yeah. Amazing. Wow. Well said. I hope you guys heard that advice. Super important. Okay. Alessandra, this is the time of the interview where we have our quick fire questions. I wish we have a little, song. Maybe Carl, we have a little riff that goes. Do, do, do, do.

[00:28:58] Karl: we might need to add that. Yeah, exactly.

[00:29:01] Erum: okay. I'll ask and Carl asks, so let's go. You ready?

[00:29:04] Alessandra: Yes.

[00:29:05] Erum: Okay. All right. This is a really hard one, but again, quick fire. Alright, so daily, SPF or Daily Peptide,

[00:29:13] Erum: what's your true non-negotiable?

[00:29:15] Alessandra: Daily peptide is my true non-negotiableI never forget to apply my peptide and it can have a day or other that I forget because I live in a place that there's not much uve index. Sometimes I can miss the SPF, but the peptide I never

[00:29:33] Alessandra: miss. So that's me.

[00:29:35] Karl: Amazing. What's one skincare myth that you wish would disappear forever?

[00:29:42] Alessandra: I think,

[00:29:43] Alessandra: the main myth is that aging. It's a process that you don't have control and that, it's just a faith you have completely control over your aging process. It's more the lifestyle that will determine how your aging, so

[00:30:03] Alessandra: keep the control of the aging process.

[00:30:05] Erum: Great. Awesome. Okay, next one. One book, podcast, or film that's recently inspired your science thinking.

[00:30:13] Alessandra: So for

[00:30:14] Alessandra: that one, like I just came back from this conference, A RDD, that's aging Research and Drug Discovery that happened two weeks ago in Denmark, in Copenhagen. And there they were talking a lot about, the level of the aging process in each person that I mentioned a little bit like, okay, if I'm going to do any type of a lytic intervention or any intervention to approach aging.

[00:30:42] Alessandra: I first need to understand where like my body is, because people that are accumulating more senescent cells, for example, they will benefit faster or they will need a different dose of a molecule compared to someone that's the same age, but probably accumulated less senescent cells. So that thinking about of understanding where we are and how we can get the right markers to measure that.

[00:31:09] Alessandra: This was not read in the book, it came from the conference from a lot of the presentations and discussion, but something that since I came back, I'm thinking about and thinking about how this will impact one's

[00:31:20] Alessandra: skin as well in the future.

[00:31:22] Karl: That's

[00:31:22] Karl: great. So before I ask the next, quick fire question, could you just define for our listeners what you mean by analytic? we know what it is, but there's a lot. Of people who listen, who won't know what's analytic or is,

[00:31:34] Alessandra: So Seno, alytic are a type of molecule that can eliminate senescent cells in the body. And it's already shown in animals that if you have a old animal with a lot of senescent cells and you apply a Seno litic to that animal that you can rejuvenate, lot of markers and you can, delay. In that animal.

[00:31:57] Alessandra: So there's a lot of research of like, oh, how we can improve longevity in humans already by applying these molecules like would be supplements or something like that to extend your health. a lot of now it's question is like, okay, the dose of these kind of molecules, it depends on how much senescent cells do you have or not.

[00:32:16] Alessandra: So a lot of these questions on how we can, have, biomarkers to identify that before doing any intervention. it's something

[00:32:25] Alessandra: that I'm thinking about.

[00:32:26] Karl: that's amazing.

[00:32:27] Karl: Okay, so you know, you just came back from this conference, this aging and drug discovery conference, but what word best describes how you feel about aging right now today?

[00:32:37] Alessandra: excited.

[00:32:38] Alessandra: I'm very excited about aging. I'm excited about life, so I'm excited I can life get better every year. And if I'm feeling healthy and. Strong life is good, right? So I'm very excited about aging. I'm excited that I'm in a time where all this research is happening and all this advancements is happening.

[00:32:57] Alessandra: So I think I'll get to 80, 85, 90 feeling strong and doing a lot of fun stuff, and not be on a bed full of diseases.

[00:33:08] Erum: Yes. And that's

[00:33:09] Erum: a beautiful vision. Okay. Now we're also ending with a very challenging quickfire question. So if you weren't in longevity science, what wild dream job

[00:33:19] Erum: would you pick?

[00:33:20] Alessandra: Oh wild. Okay.

[00:33:22] Alessandra: Well let me say one, dream. When I wanted as a kid to be a scientist, I also wanted to be an actress.

[00:33:30] Erum: I wanted to be also an astronaut. I think like one day if I can go out and see from the space, the world, I still believe that, maybe it'll be possible for me to accomplish that as the evolution is going like, the science and research and space and things like that.

[00:33:47] Alessandra: But I'm fascinated

[00:33:48] Alessandra: about this space.

[00:33:49] Karl: You're talking in Rams language

[00:33:51] Erum: Yes,I'm all in just space.

[00:33:53] Erum: I'm not sure about going necessarily, probably be like the 500000th person. Like, I, wanna see more people go through. but yeah, I mean there's so much to do from a research standpoint when it comes to, biology and space too, which is obviously very fascinating as well.

[00:34:08] Erum: incredible. Well. This has been so much fun, Alessandra, we have, first met you at, SynBioBeta and we stayed in touch and , I'm a customer. I'm a big fan of one skin and it's just wonderful to hear the story. And thank you so much for coming on.

[00:34:22] Karl: Thank you so much, Alessandro. We really appreciate it.

[00:34:26] Alessandra: Thank you so much. So

[00:34:27] Alessandra: we are like, at one scale, incredible, very inspired by the work of messaging lab and we have already worked together and we love to see like scientists that are helping people to communicate better the science. So thank you for all the work that you guys have been doing.

[00:34:45] Erum: Stop. Stop. Yes, I can. I can't wait. Love Fest amazing. I love it. Great. Great note to end on.

[00:34:55] Erum: We'll see you later.