Brian Johnson: Johnson, thanks for being here.

Brian Johnson: Yeah, it's good to see you.

Host: How are you feeling? Maybe just share with us what you did a few days ago. And

Brian Johnson: Yeah, I did um a I did five MOD DMT, which is the most powerful psychedelic on the planet. Uh it's somewhere between five and 10 times more powerful than DMT. And so, yeah, I it's so it's been 48 hours. I'm still learning how to talk about it.

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Host: Before we get into your experience, why did you choose to do it?

Brian Johnson: Two things. is one mostly as a longevity experiment. So when when we when I started this project 5 years ago, the the approach we had was go through all the scientific evidence ever published on health and longevity. Try to find the interventions that have the best evidence for effect size and we just went down the list from top performing on down. So, of course, you start with uh exercise, nutrition, uh you know, um sleep, and you work your way down to things like hyperbaric oxygen therapy and sauna, and then rapamy, metformin. And so, we never actually had on our radar psychedelics. They were always either an ancient medicine, you know, being used in in ritualistic practices or being pointed at things like depression and anxiety in in certain trials, but it was never understood as a rejuvenation protocol, something that was for anti-aging. And so we found a pre-clinical evidence in mice on psilocybin. We thought that's interesting. Uh and so we did the world's most studied the most uh quantified experiment doing psilocybin three doses at 25 milligrams uh of psilocybin

Host: which are pretty high doses.

Brian Johnson: It's yeah it's a clinical uh dose at very very close to a hero dose and we found that we think it's a a longevity therapy.

Host: Let's get to that data in a minute. But then you decided to try 5me this weekend.

Brian Johnson: Yes. Walk me through the experience

Host: because you televised the whole thing. It was live streamed. You looked amazingly calm going into it and going through the process. Walk us through your experience.

Brian Johnson: Yeah, I think uh those who have done 5me would probably relate with me that it feels like an impossible task to explain what it's like. So that caveat said, I'll I'll give it a go. I'm stunned. absolutely floored, speechless. You you basically experience raw consciousness and raw intelligence. It's this. So whatever when I say these words, take these words that I committed to you, take that idea, multiply it by a thousand, and then move out infinite depth, infinite width, width and then dimensions. And like that gives you kind of like a rough map of like the size and space that you deal with. And uh it was incredibly hard because you you get blasted into this space that is so foreign you don't even know what's happening.

Host: It happens very quickly

Brian Johnson: like you you inhale it. I did uh 9 milligrams of intramuscular and then seven uh 18 of of vaporized and it hits you within 10 seconds. You're just ab you're out. And so um but what happens is you you get in that space and then

Host: visual changes every

Brian Johnson: very very little visual uh like you see on DMT it's a very visual you'll meet the you know like the elves or whatever else this is not a visual experience but you you get in this world and you lock in to basically you either panic because you feel like the gates of hell are going to open that the the stream of Yeah.

Host: like break your brain.

Brian Johnson: Yeah. You feel like it's going to like threaten your sanity. Like is it going to chop you up into little pieces? And so in that moment, you have to say, do I try to wrestle this and I I need to just like wait it out until it's over or you just relent and you say yes. And you have to in that moment, you have to say yes so thoroughly. You have to release all attachment, all preconditions, all want, all desire. You have to release self, ego, control. You just have to just relent entirely. And then when you do that, it opened up this unimaginable bliss and euphoria. And I I again this like a V1 of trying to explain this, but if I list out the the most dynamic experiences I've had of a human, you know, uh like certain accomplishments or getting married or having a child or overcoming a difficulty or you know, state your list of things. This is without question the most dynamic experience I've ever experienced as a human. Does the internal chatter, the internal monologue of the ego turn off?

Host: Does.

Brian Johnson: So you can't hear yourself speaking, how do you rationalize what's going on if you don't have a dialogue going on?

Brian Johnson: It's this visceral feeling like you're you're hyper aware of what's happening. It's not like you you block out in the first like when you take a very high dose, you don't really know what's happening the first few minutes, but then you kind of come to and you're hyper aware of everything. It's not visual, but it's this um you're in the depths of existence like this.

Host: It's just the most majestic

Brian Johnson: experience achievable by a by by intelligent life. I just can't imagine anything more miraculous.

Host: You've studied the biology, the biochemistry. What goes on in the brain as this molecule hits your neurons?

Brian Johnson: Yeah. I mean like it um I mean one it completely dissolves your default mode network.

Host: Describe what that is.

Brian Johnson: So like um it's this is the engine that constructs self and ego. And so as you ruminate, you know, like you're going through

Host: thinking through your day, what's next? How am I feeling? Yeah.

Brian Johnson: What should I be doing right now? Constant conversation.

Host: Do I feel bad about myself? Do I feel, you know, like I am I shy? Am I like do I feel bad about whatever? Like you're doing this rumination stuff. Uh kids don't have this rumination loop. Their default mode network is is quiet. And as you age, you basically build up this default mode network into more stiffer patterns. And so as you age, your experience of reality becomes increasingly narrow. You have these big ruts that form. And so you can just see people in their patterns like how open a child is to say like very random things. And as adults, you're just very, you shut in. Like when I did psilocybin, one of the reasons why we did it is because it does have this effect where it dampens the default mode network. And we could pick this up with kernel the brain interface. You can see how the default mode network weakens. Like so basically like think of the brain like a globe with airports scattered about

Host: and you have certain traffic patterns like New York to London. You have a certain number of flights every day. That's like a very strong connection. But New York to um you know some small town in Arkansas has a very uh low traffic map. And so when you do something like psilocybin it basically takes the airports picks them up and then repositions around the world. So it's just all scrambled so that the traffic patterns aren't the same and then over time

Host: the neurons don't physically move but the activity shifts around.

Brian Johnson: Exactly.

Host: Right. the neurons are a little bit more random

Host: than they normally would be which arguably drives neuroplasticity causes those neurons to reach out for new connections and when new connections are made new behaviors new ways of thinking emerge coming out of these therapeutics. Is that a fair way to describe it?

Brian Johnson: Exactly right. So you look at my brain on psilocybin from kernel you see my patterns before like the New York London connection you see my brain afterwards and it's exactly what you said new patterns are emergent the old ones have have quieted down. It's like a new map of connectivity. And so we saw that happen and that does generate a lot of neuroplasticity.

Host: And obviously this neuroplasticity rewiring these connections in the brain is what allows trauma victims or folks that have a certain wiring that they keep repeating in their brain which causes the trauma and the anxiety in their lives to get rewired and then that trauma and that anxiety feels like it dissolves or melts away. Is that a fair?

Brian Johnson: Exactly right.

Host: Yeah.

Brian Johnson: Yeah. And so this is this has been documented in psilocybin. It's kind of well understood. How did you connect that psilocybin data to an effort in longevity or was this just like a random idea? Let's try it out.

Brian Johnson: Yeah, it was. So we we we saw some mouse data that it had these effects. It also showed reduced inflammation. Uh so we said like this is interesting because most longevity therapies do something with inflammation, right? Like inflammation is the killer. So if you can lower inflammation, a very good sign. uh if you can do something that makes the brain more youthful and takes down those those big ruts that's use also useful. What we found at psilocybin though is it had we found a first in human observation it had this this uh metabolic reset in the brain where my blood glucose before this was in the top 99.5 percentile of all the population.

Host: Okay. after it went to the top 99.9 percentile like to move my blood glucose from that level is very very hard and but it basically like uh not like metformin where you're doing something on blood glucose this just had a reset across the body also changed my microbiome uh so we saw a full-on effect so then we said okay if that had that consequence 5 MO may have some similar characteristics and so

Host: no one had done this in 5 MO before

Brian Johnson: exactly so there's like there's potent there's there's some animal evidence um but it's the the similar dynamics of like can you take the brain and can you basically like smooth out the barnacles that accumulate and 5 MODMT compared to psilocybin like just absolutely like blasted clean my default mode network. It felt like psilocybin dampens it like it softens it but this thing just annihilated my default

Host: turned it off completely. Yeah, it just it just doesn't run the same way. And like for an example like uh this morning I woke up uh catching myself laughing in a dream. I have not laughed in a dream. I I don't even know when I've ever laughed in a dream but that is after I woke up I was like that's really weird. Like I don't remember laughing. I looked it up and like that is a characteristic of a child.

Host: Right.

Brian Johnson: And so you are restored to this childlike state. And I mean the past couple days uh I have felt childlike. You know, yesterday morning I felt that, you know, that emergent excitement, the bubbling of like today is so exciting. I'm going to do new things. I'm going to have new experiences. Um that you're just excited about all things. I haven't felt that. I don't even know when, you know, for so many years. So like it really was um profound on every layer. And I see I'm stumbling through this cuz I don't even know how to talk about it yet.

Host: During the day, you're hanging out, you're walking around. Is your brain having the same normal chatter that it did before or do you think that there's a persistent change in that default mode network?

Brian Johnson: Yeah, definitely a change. Like with I I was with my partner Kate yesterday and we um I did something that made her upset. And so like in that situation, you know, like when when couples are in that moment, you you have like this negotiation. How do I sort this? And it all just became so clear to me like when children have a fight, you have it out and it's just like done.

Host: Yeah.

Brian Johnson: And you move on. But then adults take that and they like package it up and like they want to weaponize it. Be like I got something on you,

Host: right? I'm like move it. I'm going to move the chest pieces and like try to leverage this and and um

Host: or they store it up like a snake in one of those things that pops out all the snakes later, you know? It's like package it all up.

Brian Johnson: Exactly. And so like we had this and I I just felt um absolutely like no need to escalate or to defend or to like it was just easy

Brian Johnson: and um it was a breakthrough in our relationship where I was able to communicate with her in a way. And so it's like h laughing in my sleep. It's how I deal with my partner when I walk around. I just feel so much I uh I feel so much more funny, you know, like my ability to make quips

Host: that are just immediate. Uh you know, like so yeah, I just feel renewed as a person in a way that I just really didn't imagine.

Host: Have you tried hallucinogenics before you started your longevity path a couple of years ago?

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: And did you do that recreationally or therapeutically? It was mostly

Brian Johnson: therapeutic in that I I had sold my company branch of mo. I got a divorce. I left the Mormon church and I was trying to remap like what is life? Who am I? What do I do? So I was in that rebuilding stage where I just dabbled of like you know I did I did ketamine at Colonel. So one of our first studies at Colonel is we said ketamine was a up and cominging therapy for depression and we posed the question what happens when you do ketamine. And so we did the world's most extensive measurement of ketamine with kernel before, during, and after. And so that was interesting like and it has some kind of, you know, transient effect, but that's like a a a like a little league relative to 5 MO.

Host: And so as you've gone through this, maybe share a little bit of the MRI data that you're gathering and the other data mapping neurological effects.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: And tell us a little bit about what you've learned

Brian Johnson: so far. Nothing. uh I have my subjective experience to share but we we have a structural brain MRI we have a functional brain MRI we did kernel which is like an optical interface and then I did realtime EEG capture

Host: and we should just talk about I think it's important structural you can see the the physical brain functional you can see the activity in the brain

Brian Johnson: so neurons firing and neurons that are not firing right

Host: and then electrical actions that are measured by an electrical device

Brian Johnson: so we basically I wanted cuz the brain is very so we've had a lot of success rejuvenating my heart and my lungs and muscle and body fat but rejuvenating the brain is very hard

Host: right

Brian Johnson: and so we this is why this is so such a promising therapy so we wanted to look at the brain uh through every modality possible we wanted to look at blood flow structural molecular you know the wave pattern form so we it's a it's a very high fidelity quantification and so we'll see what the data comes out um I'm very excited yeah

Host: you did this on psilocybin as well, right? You map the brain over time. What did you learn there?

Brian Johnson: Dramatic uh restoration of youthful brain patterns.

Host: Yeah. Right.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: And what comes after 5me I mean how far do you take this?

Brian Johnson: Yeah. Honestly, um I am so encouraged by psychedelics. I you know like in in the community where I hang out, psychedelics have always been understood as you know it's like a retreat or it's like a a ritual or you go to like do various explorations but never in the world of longevity. It's never been understood as that thing. And now after seeing the data now I um and of course you have to be very careful when talking about psychedelics because they're extremely powerful. It's not like go out and do them everybody right. It's like it needs to be done properly with a licensed professional. It needs to be done carefully. The person needs to be in the right state. Like it is not to be taken lightly. But I am uh more interested than ever in psychedelic compounds. They're just uniquely powerful.

Host: There's some arguments to be made that psychedelics can induce permanent psychosis.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: Cause functional changes and drive some people that might be predisposed into schizophrenic states.

Brian Johnson: That's right. How did you get over those risks? Because for a lot of people that would turn them off to trying psychedelics and it's not a nonzero percentage of people that suffer these consequences.

Brian Johnson: Yep. I agree. And and also people who have really bad trips that leave them star scarred. So it's it really is. And I think in in part of it is um what could be contributing to this is uh people who for example who have tried uh magic mushrooms. You know it's in a social situation. Someone's got a bag. you pull out some mushrooms, it's like yeah, like weighs blank and they pop it in, but they have no idea what kind of mushroom strain they're eating. They don't know what the dose of psilocybin is. Uh, so it's like unquantified, unsupervised, wrong sentence setting. And so much of it I think you can the risk persists, but I don't think we we've approached psychedelics with the appropriate rigor that we should to make it safe. And so it's not to say that we can solve for the safety issues for all people. some people just may not be the appropriate candidate for it. But I think if we do create a safety structure around it, they could deliver the benefits people want uh without, you know, with less of the risk. But definitely I agree with you like it's again it it deserves all the caution in the world. Do you think it's like neurogenic, neuroplasticity, trauma resolution? And I mean what is the way that this is going to be allowed to become call it a medical therapeutic that can be more broadly triled and then eventually figure out how to bring it to people without it being carrying all the risks and burdens that it does today.

Brian Johnson: I mean if I just subjectively compare my experience with 5 MO to you having a better diet and exercising every day and uh sleeping well and doing the sauna and doing hyper oxygen therapy.

Brian Johnson: this was more efficacious than all of them in terms of the reset of me as a human. It it just is incomparable. And I guess I'm I'm really left pondering like for this molecule to have such a gigantic impact now like how long will it last? What's the decay curve like? You know, will I find I I become the former Brian within 30 days, 60 days? Do I have to repeat this again? I don't know. But it really is, you know, you when you sleep well, you feel great. When you exercise, great. But like nothing like what 5 MO did in terms of of like the reset of me as a human.

Host: So let's just talk about the consequences outside of the physiological which is life.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: There are lots of stories and friends that I have that and people that I know

Host: that have tried a heavy psychedelic like an Iawaska or something.

Host: They were the CEO of a company and then they quit their company and they go off to the jungle, leave their family, divorce their their partner.

Host: um make such dramatic life changes because their perspective has been shifted so much

Host: that they re-evaluate what matters in life to such a degree that they give up a lot of the things that mattered before.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: In the wake of that, there are people that feel they're a victim of that behavioral shift, the investors in the company, the employees, the family members, etc. Yeah.

Host: Can you just talk a little bit about those broad risks because we've seen it and I don't know if you've seen the same but friends that have kind of like said I have this new perspective I'm giving up my life.

Brian Johnson: I've seen the same thing and I um one investor told me that he even put it in the deal docks that you know if we invest you're not going to do these psychedelics because they wanted to minimize the the risk profile. It's a thing

Host: in your deal in an investment in you. No, I just spoke because I've been doing this uh people bring this up as a topic of conversation, right?

Host: And so they say like, I see you're doing this for longevity, but you know, like I've seen so many examples where people put money in, then you lose the founder. Like they're off, everyone's high and dry. And so they were telling me that they put into Dill Docs that they can't do this for the duration of the company. And so it is a thing. And you know, I I have nothing to say about it other than I know it happens. Um, also I would say that most people in the tech world that I'm familiar with, again, they've done this in retreat centers or in social environments. It's not quantified. It's not set and setting. It's so it's a different thing. But I will say like, you know, I I guess me as a person, what I'm trying to focus on, I came back even more motivated to do what I'm doing now. Uh I don't have a desire to go off in the woods, you know, and like and live that kind of life. It it it emboldened me to work on these things, but no question about it. You you do have a dramatic shift in perspective, and it's it's very hard to get.

Host: It begs a very important philosophical question.

Host: Who am I?

Brian Johnson: Yes.

Host: If I'm defined by my experiences, it roughly equates to my neurons are wired in a way.

Brian Johnson: Yes. That's a consequence of my experiences. And if I go in and take a drug and in a few hours rewire all my neurons, am I the same person?

Host: What makes Brian Brian? You can maybe recall some memories of Brian prior to taking the psychedelic,

Host: but Brian as a person has been rewired.

Host: Are you a different person now? And what does that say about are we ever a persistent person?

Brian Johnson: Right.

Brian Johnson: Yeah, your question is spot on. probably the most dramatic reconstruction of your 60 plus trillion cells than anything you can do in life. Yeah. Like maybe like a near-death experience, you know, would would maybe uh be close, but it's a dramatic rewiring of you as a as a human.

Host: Your values can change, too.

Brian Johnson: That's right.

Host: And you could judge the values pre and post, right? You could judge values ascribed to you by a religion

Host: or perhaps values ascribed to you by responsibility to family members, children, spouses, partners, what have you.

Host: You abandon them after you go through this change. So your values have changed. Is it right or wrong?

Brian Johnson: That's right.

Host: I think is another important question that comes out of all this.

Brian Johnson: I agree. And like you you now like you now think about that that's been through the frame where the world changes at a certain speed. Now you take the world where it's changing faster. So we now know that it's hard to predict what's going to happen two weeks from now or a month, right? Like things are changing very quickly. And so now you come up with this practical question. Can humans change fast enough in the world where AI is the dominant engine of innovation? And so in that case, like you may want psychedelics as your ally to say, as a human, I'm struggling to like move with the change.

Host: Yeah. And so there there's potentially where it it flips from a liability to an asset where like now I do want that restructure changing even though you have some tail risk of like maybe my priorities will shift.

Host: I think you have profound what I would call psychoflexibility

Host: and I think most people don't. They have either a disinterest in changing who they are overnight

Host: or they're fearful of the the ramifications or the experience

Host: and that they wouldn't go through it. How far would you take it? Would you wire yourself up to a neural link or neural enhancement device that would give you the ability to have information on demand and maybe change your personality and capacity as a human through an implant? Would you consider doing something like that? You would would you consider a transgenic system where you basically take a plasmid which would then express a set of proteins in your body and change uh gene expression profiles and cells in your body and basically can rewire you as a different person?

Brian Johnson: Yes.

Host: Yes. Is there a limit to what you would try? Oh,

Host: interesting. Where do you think that comes from?

Brian Johnson: I think I I find it to be the most exciting configuration of life. Uh the ability to play on the frontier, uh novelty and expedition and challenge. That's really my

Host: Did you always have it or are you responding to childhood suppression of those?

Brian Johnson: It's probably it's probably an overcompensation of of trauma response like most things are. And so, you know, as a child, I lived in a very structured religious environment where things were cemented like here's the story, here's the plan, here's what you do and what you don't do.

Host: Yeah.

Brian Johnson: And so, yeah, maybe it's probably just I'm now a flip in the opposite.

Brian Johnson: And so, I mean, that's like probably true that I really uh I don't trust my internal generation of reality. You know, I know I'm always making things up. I've got 188 chronicle biases like all humans do. So I'm just I'm generally suspicious of all things all time and I don't take myself very seriously. So I just find the the frontier play space to be like right now I mean you know what you're doing in building a company is like you just open up a a toolkit and say like what can I build and how do I modify and uh so I agree with you I do have a a strong proclivity towards openness of play.

Host: Do you find that you've been challenged in maintaining I would call it external responsibility as you explore and enhance yourself so much. Do you give up the responsibility to others around you who maybe are dependent on you or or in need of you?

Brian Johnson: Yeah, I have three kids and so um I do think about them a lot and I you being a father is a really important thing to me and it's an important part of my identity and so that has not changed. So I've never uh vacasillated on that or changed my disposition towards that. For those around me, I guess fortunately I have a a social group that just says go and play. There's there's really no one in my life

Host: that tries to claw me back. There's no Velcro.

Brian Johnson: It's just all encouraging. And so that I guess I feel very fortunate that everyone around me and they're willing to take the risks. I mean, this is when I sat down for 5 MO. I mean, my my partner Kate like she's got a ton of risk. Like what if it goes poorly? What if I change my perspectives? What if something bad happens?

Host: Well, one could make an argument that taking that degree of risk where something could have gone wrong, the people around you are enabling versus being supportive, right?

Brian Johnson: That's right. That's right.

Host: I mean, yeah, that's right.

Host: That's a consequence. But let's shift topics to other uh modalities for longevity.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: What else is on the horizon? So, you've had this profound set of experiences with psychedelics. You've documented in a very extraordinary and exquisite fashion all of the other things that you've been doing with interventions. Are there other things that are on the horizon that you're either excited about or that you're considering yourself?

Brian Johnson: Yeah. I mean, two of the ones that we've spoken about, cell therapy and gene therapy.

Host: Yeah.

Brian Johnson: Yeah. They um they're all in the pipeline. So, they're not ready yet. We've we've knocked out all the stuff you can do today. Like, we've gone through it all, done it all. Um the nextG therapies are just not there yet. So, we're looking at mitochondrial rejuvenation. I think that's incredible. I think mitochondrial augmentation therapy and there was a paper I saw where in order to get the mitochondria in the cell, they coded the mitochondria in effectively a red blood cell envelope

Host: which made it more transportable into cells and less uh attack by the immune system which is incredible. And I I'm a big big big believer in this this this course of therapeut therapeutic modality that no one has even recognized.

Brian Johnson: I agree. We have our first uh mitochondrial therapy lined up. So

Host: how are you going to do it? you're you're like 99.9%. You need someone who's like 48.7%

Host: to try the mitochondrial particularly like you know I think they tried it in Parkinson's patients Alzheimer's patients that's where you could really see profound shifts in

Host: in certain metrics for you it's like 99.9 to what like

Brian Johnson: yeah I have the mitochondria you know of a 48-year-old right so like what if I

Host: what if I yes

Host: you could go to your siblings child because the mitochondria is passed maternally because it's in the it's in the egg Yeah.

Host: So, it's the mother's mitochondria. So, if you go down in the mother's line,

Host: if you have a sister who has a kid, they're going to have very young mitochondria. You can take a little blood sample and then

Host: grow their mitochondria extensively and use that as a biological match to

Brian Johnson: This is a a perfect extension. I've had a blood boy as a son.

Host: Yeah.

Brian Johnson: So, now I'm just going to go to the extended family and be like, "Guys, it's a it's a family project."

Host: Yeah. Family project. Exactly. Yeah.

Brian Johnson: Well, that one's super interesting. We also have one we're doing. Um I I'm now building

Host: Sorry. Are you going to do your own mitochondrial transplantation? You're going to build a bioreactor or you using working with one of the third parties that are

Brian Johnson: Yeah. third company. Yeah. So I'll get I'll do a blood draw in the next week or two. They'll spin up and then we'll do it. Yeah. I'll do it.

Host: Okay. Y

Host: So you're going to get your mitochondria which have some you know the problem with mitochondria as you know is mitochondrial DNA degradation over time right? It accelerates for certain people, but that way if you go back to a young person, you have young

Host: mitochondria, but then you're going to multiply yours out.

Brian Johnson: Yes.

Host: And probably select a little bit or for healthier ones. Yeah. Right. Okay. And then put it back in.

Brian Johnson: It's very I mean exploratively like we don't know. Uh we're one of the first. They're they're in phase two now.

Host: Do you sprint?

Brian Johnson: Yeah, I do.

Host: So you could probably score if you did it intramuscular like mitochondrial therapy. You could sprint see your score.

Brian Johnson: That's a great idea.

Host: Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah,

Host: that would be a great way to measure it from a rather than just a basic biomarker perspective. Be really interesting to see.

Brian Johnson: Yeah, sprinting is one of the most underappreciated longevity therapies.

Host: Yeah, I I don't do it.

Brian Johnson: Oh man,

Host: I've got the um the age of a 74y old uh roughly

Brian Johnson: I am uh I'm definitely not keeping track with you. Would you consider or have you looked at any plasmids where you take a gene as DNA put in your body and then that gene makes a protein in your body that that does something

Host: like the one we were looking at in the foxil 3 expression. Yeah, exactly. So the messenal stem cells you packaged up with the fox3 delivery um you know that showed that over 50% of tissues getting that rejuvenation.

Brian Johnson: It's unbelievable.

Brian Johnson: Un it's like the best demonstration in the entire world.

Host: It's perfect for tissue regeneration like as a particular application set tissue regeneration using that sort of system

Host: seems like a no-brainer. It's like, yeah,

Host: it's safe, right? It's like, so yes, I I uh reached out to that Chinese professor. I'm really interested in seeing it replicating. I would love

Host: You reached out to the Chinese professor?

Brian Johnson: Yeah,

Host: that's awesome. We sent that paper back. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So,

Host: can you respond?

Brian Johnson: Uh, yeah.

Host: Awesome.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: Good.

Brian Johnson: Uh, so we I'd love to do that. Um, I'd love to actually build it ourselves, but that's like a two-year project. So, um,

Host: AI can help make it faster.

Brian Johnson: That's true. Actually, that's true. AI as a project manager for these sorts of programs is

Host: you know that's true. We we spoke about this six months ago. Yeah. And

Brian Johnson: things are so different.

Brian Johnson: So different now six months later in terms of stand that up. Um that one's cool. So I think that's a good good option. Then also I'm doing uh Brian Johnson organoids. So uh we took my IPS IPSC's

Host: we now have

Host: induced pluropotent stem cells. So you took your cells turn them into stem cells. Yep. Yeah.

Brian Johnson: So now we're doing indish. So now we have like a Brian Johnson heart, liver, lungs, and now we're gonna try molecules on me in

Host: So you've appi So let me just walk the audience through this. So you take cells off of your skin or something blood and then you put these Yamanaka factor proteins on those cells causes those cells to become stem cells which means they can then turn into any other cell and then you put other proteins on them to turn them into a heart cell

Host: or a eye cell or or what have you. And now you've got a store of these tissue specific Brian Johnson cells. Yes. That you then use for

Brian Johnson: like you can say okay uh what if you give Brian Johnson blank you know drug. What is what happens? Is it good? Is it bad? What are the side effects? What

Host: in the P3 dish? You put the drug in there see what happens.

Brian Johnson: Yeah. So like you can simulate all these experiments. So now you you get the advantage of time of acceleration of like what to take, why, what dose. That's awesome.

Host: What comaterial things to consider. And so we we have the organoids stood up. We haven't done our first takes yet. So that's interesting because now I have to do this old school methodology like put it in my body,

Host: wait to see what happens. Is it good? Is it bad? What, you know, how does it affect everything else?

Brian Johnson: Yeah, totally.

Brian Johnson: That's a good one. But I mean, I don't know. We'll see. It's cool in concept. I mean, TBD if it actually works. So, we'll see.

Host: Have you tracked any of the alternatives to Yamanaka factors, the factor discovery work that's going on, and do you think there's anything worth testing at this stage?

Brian Johnson: Yeah, I'm an investor in New Limit. So, I've talked to them about where they're at and I mean

Host: Blake and Brian's company,

Brian Johnson: they've done uh I mean they've made remarkable progress. They they figured out how to computationally solve the discovery process.

Host: Yeah.

Brian Johnson: And so they um they're much faster than they initially thought. And so that's very encouraging.

Host: You know, the big challenge with Yamanaka factors is always dosing. If you overdose a cell, a one cell, that cell can become a cancer cell and take off as a tumor. Yeah. So the sensitivity that you need to have to get the right number of the factors which is a protein into the cell needs to be

Host: perfectly tuned.

Brian Johnson: So I have a theory that this will end up being solved by cellular switches

Brian Johnson: that will end up putting machinery into the cells that can turn on or off the protein synthesis at the right dosing based on the measurement of gene expression in the cell. That's my theory on where this will end.

Host: That makes a lot of sense. Any other control mechanism will be inadequate.

Brian Johnson: That's right. the feedback loop just

Brian Johnson: all you need is one error and you're you're you're in trouble. But it is it is the most profound I think technology that humanity is dealing with today besides AI. We're not quite there with fusion which I would argue is probably a distant third but it is very powerful what's possible

Brian Johnson: and in the future like I think we'll look back and we'll see GLP1s as the first big drop.

Host: Yeah. like what I can just inject myself and like it solves hunger and you know and then the second will probably be something like new limit or one of these fox one of these plasma based fox 3 therapies where

Host: it will show real life like dramatic changes totally

Brian Johnson: and then humanity will shift as like uh longevity being a vision of sci-fi you know rich people pursuit to like something that is truly I mean go back to like the conversation on on the temptation towards socialism right like if if you can feel robust in your ability to pursue life and be healthy and vibrant and uh in control. I think these things could have dramatic changes in society, not just in health, but like

Host: well any form of abundance, whether it's abundance in food, in energy, in housing, in mobility, in lifespan, the more abundance people get, the happier they are. And the more you're improving abundance in the world, the the better we are going to live as a group of people together on planet Earth, the happier we will all be with each other.

Brian Johnson: I think like honestly like a lot of the the

Host: external conflict only comes from internal unhappiness

Brian Johnson: 100%. Yeah. So, if you look at the general malaise of like American society, like no wonder uh things are, right? Like you've got metab 84% of people have metabolic disorder. Over 40% of people are obese. Like we're just in really poor health. Nobody's sleeping. Everyone's on their phone. Like we have mental health issues. Like no wonder you have the proclivity towards these kinds of outcomes. Like so if you could get the health in check, it changes the psychological decision of you, your community, your country. Like you have much more of a can do attitude. like I can take on the world and I can do hard things, but when you're not feeling well, like it's just everything is just so much harder.

Host: Yeah. 100%. And so in light of all of these new therapeutic modalities and these new opportunities that seem to be biologically proven and have these profound effects, why continue to tinker with psychedelics? Like are they as profound or are they a compliment or like how do you think about fitting all of this portfolio of things that you're looking at together?

Brian Johnson: Yeah, I mean I guess the question is um I forget on the Fox 3 study. I don't know if they saw brain rejuvenation. Didn't see that. Yeah.

Host: I did not see that. And I don't

Host: I don't remember. I mean, it is a very complicated organ.

Brian Johnson: Yeah. Exactly. And

Host: it's insane.

Host: You know, you can grow muscle tissue back and you can grow skin tissue back and it's kind of like, okay, I grew a little ex like if you grow the the neurons back maybe in the wrong way.

Host: Like we don't know.

Brian Johnson: Yeah.

Host: Because it's never been done before. So understanding the consequence of neuro regeneration is like

Brian Johnson: so I wonder like if the role it might play like you know maybe psilocybin and 5 MO won't be um you know meaningful for like basic functions of the body but maybe it's the uh the outperformer in youthfulness of your of your disposition towards reality. Like one thing I'm apprehensive about is you I'm 48 and so

Host: as you start climbing to your 50s 60s you do

Host: really narrow like your ambition goes from I can do anything to start you know narrowing down further and further and I worry about using losing a youthful disposition of a can do attitude of anything is possible totally

Host: and maybe that's the role of psychedelics is you just get a wash of like the snapback of like I can and I can bounce

Brian Johnson: Yeah, that definitely been the case for me. So, I think they do probably play a really important role of like they're probably a set of things that for certain people that will um basically like I mean I felt like it was like 30 40 years of psychological rejuvenation, you know, it's like to transport me back to a childlike state. Yeah.

Host: That is insane. I don't get that from the sauna or from eating well or from sleeping well. Like I'm still

Brian Johnson: right. So, just unique.

Host: Yeah. Amazing. Well, listen. I'm going to go drink alcohol and eat carbs and stay out late. I don't know. What are you going to do?

Brian Johnson: I'm gonna go to bed on time. Yeah. Do my wind down routine.

Host: Yeah. You do you. But you as well. Enjoy it.

Brian Johnson: I appreciate it. This has been great. Brian Johnson, thank you. Thanks. Yeah, that was awesome.

Host: That was great.

Host: I'm going all in.