Kamil Pabis: Why Health Hits a Ceiling, Longevity Needs Drugs & Science Moves Too Slowly - E666
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
59 min
1 speaker
7 chapters
transcribed 16 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main focus of the conversation with Kamil Pabis?
This is a fundamental problem in academia, that the pay can be so bad that it only attracts idealists and who eventually burn out. And I feel this is a bit because society values the things it wants but not the things it needs. So there's a lot of short term thinking.
Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on success. I'm Jeremy O, Venture Capitalist, Sarah founder, Harvard MBA, science fiction nerd, and dad of two daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesea.com. Stay well and stay brave. Hey Camille, I'm excited to have you on the show because you're a community builder in longevity and at the forefront of research there. And I think that's something that so many people are worried about, right?
So could you introduce yourself?
Great to be here. Normally I'm doing the interviews. I used to run a podcast, so I'm glad to be interviewed today. So yeah, I'm a longevity researcher in Singapore, working with Professor Brian Kennedy. I would describe myself as well as an science longevity advocate. So I try to write about science, blogging, telling people how really important it is to extend human lifespan. I build communities because I love networking, going out there. My focus longevity and health, but really at the core is substantial or even radical extension of human healthy lifespan.
Fantastic. Yeah. So how did you even get into longevity as an idea or a concept or something to focus on?
Yeah, it's quite interesting. So after high school, I stumbled on a book by Aubrey de Grey. He's a very controversial figure in the field, but he's quite influential. It was called Ending Aging. And he conceptualized the dream of eventually being able to stop aging. And I love big ambitions, especially when you're just straight out of high school, you're naturally drawn to this kind of thing. And then after this, I also discovered obviously With the juroscience hypothesis, meaning that even if you very slightly decelerate aging, you get really substantial benefits for the economy. Mm. Right. So that at the extreme end we have stopping aging and at the now we have like slowing aging. And then I continued to do undergrad.
I had a bit of a turbulent career, you could say. I had several positions in Austria. I went to the UK and then I had two pus positions in Germany before coming to Singapore. Yeah. Yeah. All a bit related to longevity.
Yeah. So Tell me more about this influential book about this idea of longevity. Tell me about this Aubrey degree.
Right, so he looks a bit like a wizard. He's a man with a long beard. And I think he intentionally tries to be a little controversial, and he said, you know, aging is actually simpler than we believe. There are a few core principles that drive aging. Today, you might know about these hallmarks of aging. His idea sort of predates this that there are a few key reasons why we age, and if we stop them, then we would really substantiate Extend lifespan and people would be healthy for much longer. So he had things like mitochondrial degeneration was important, accumulation of senescent cells, things that we still consider important today. And yeah, I just really loved the idea. It was a sort of selling an engineering approach to aging.
Imagine, just very briefly, for example, like a cancer surgeon. He doesn't have to fully understand cancer, you just cut it out, you remove it. So maybe there's sort of a shortcut how we could tackle ageing eventually.
Fantastic. And there you are in Austria studying at the University of Vienna. And you made a decision to really not just focus on longevity as a cool idea or even a cool science fiction concept, right? But to also focus on it via an academia approach. So can you talk a little bit more about why you decided to do that?
Yeah, back then in Vienna there is basically no aging startup seen.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main focus of the conversation with Kamil Pabis?
0:00–4:20
2
How did Kamil become interested in longevity research?
4:20–13:00
3
Why does academia struggle to retain researchers in longevity science?
13:00–22:45
4
How does Singapore’s health policy and environment support longer lifespans?
22:45–31:53
5
Why do lifestyle improvements hit a biological ceiling for extending healthspan?
31:53–42:24
6
How are biohacker communities driving early longevity tools in Singapore?
42:24–52:37
7
Why do ethics boards and bureaucracy slow down human trials for aging drugs?
52:37–59:45
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
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