Is Aging a Disease? Inside the First Human Gene Therapy Experiment

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Gene therapy is no longer a distant promise, it is rapidly becoming one of the most disruptive technologies in medicine. And few figures embody the urgency, controversy, and pioneering spirit of this field more than Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of BioViva and widely recognized as the world’s first self- engineered “GMO human.”

In this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, we dive deep into her bold vision to treat aging not as an inevitable decline, but as a disease that can be targeted, modified, and potentially reversed. Again, treating aging as a disease.

Her journey into genetics began with a simple but profound realization: the diseases that kill most of us, including Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and overall frailty, are rooted in the biology of aging itself. Instead of waiting for late-stage decline, she argues that medicine should intervene upstream, correcting the genomic and cellular faults that accumulate over time. This perspective led her to take an extraordinary step: undergoing experimental gene therapy on herself in 2015,
outside traditional regulatory frameworks.

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0:00 Intro
3:16 Treating Aging as a Disease
12:16 Launching a Radical Biotech Company
15:49 Why Telomere Length Mattered Most
18:51 Fear at the Edge of Experimentation
24:19 Ad: Optoceutics
26:08 Alpha-Klotho, The Longevity Gene
30:02 Why Alzheimer’s Still Has No Cure
32:21 Mitochondria at the Center of Brain Health
36:04 Ad: Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club
39:04 Keeping PGC-1 Alpha Switched On
42:43 Tracking Telomere Length Year After Year
47:11 Ad: 3×4 Genetics
48:37 Myokines and Whole-Body Health
51:48 Glutathione Deficiency and Neurodegeneration
1:00:20 Closing Thoughts

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Elizabeth (Liz) Parrish, MBA, is the Founder and CEO of BioViva Sciences USA Inc., a pioneering biotechnology company committed to extending healthy human lifespan through advanced gene therapies. Under her leadership, BioViva is developing next-generation combinatorial gene treatments powered by its proprietary CMV delivery platform, positioning the company at the forefront of therapeutic innovation.

An accomplished entrepreneur, author, and visionary thinker, Liz is one of the leading global voices behind the Best Choice Medicine (BCM) initiative—a regulatory framework aimed at accelerating access to genetic therapies worldwide. She is deeply involved in international scientific education and has delivered keynote talks at major conferences and institutions, including WIRED, TEDx, and numerous other high-profile venues.

Liz’s work has been featured in multiple publications, and she has contributed an academic chapter to Springer, reinforcing her role as a respected thought leader in genetics and longevity science. She champions the view that cellular aging is a disease—one that can and should be addressed through modern biotechnology. She also believes that breakthroughs in space research will not only advance human health and lifespan on Earth but will also make space travel safer and help drive curative medical innovations, particularly for young patients and those with few therapeutic options today.

https://www.instagram.com/lizlparrish/?hl=en

https://bioviva-science.com/
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