How Science Could Return Eyesight to the Blind | Joe Rogan and David Sinclair

And in our studies we're recovering eyesight. Really? What about to damage eyes? Yeah. Really? Yeah. So I don't want to freak out. Because I know a guy who's got a significantly damaged eye from fighting. Well, I can tell you what we've done. And this is work we're writing up for publication now. We've done a few things, three things to the mice. One is we've pinched their optic nerve and crushed it, which is a test for growing neurons in the eye. And we find that with our reprogramming, we can make the nerves be just like a newborn baby. They grow back. And then we also tested on glaucoma, pressure in the eye. We increased pressure in the mouse's eye, and they lose largely their eyesight. And we can recover that. And then we also test old mice that don't see very well. And we also seem to improve their eyesight almost back to normal. So I don't think we'll be going to nursing homes anytime soon. But what we are doing is running a clinical trial on this. And so we're looking to do that in early 2020. And the clinical trial will be on people with glaucoma or various eye issues? The plan is glaucoma first. But it could work for other damage-writteners as well. Even broken spinal cords, we're thinking of trying. Wow. And that's just one part of the body. Imagine what it could potentially do to the rest of us. Do you feel incredibly fortunate to be living in this century? I do every day. But I would love to live next century, because it's going to be even cooler. Yeah, but what's cool is you're kind of at the tip of the spear pushing this stuff right now. You're going to be one of the guys that gets to see this stuff get implemented from your actual own research where it didn't exist before. That's pretty damn cool. Better than living 100 years from now, where you just take it for granted like a trust fund kid. Yeah, but just imagine what you can do in 100 years. Well, maybe you'll be here. Where? Oh, on the Earth? Yeah, you might be 150. We'll see. I think there's a chance someone will be. Well, it's a good chance you're going to be. I mean, you're the one who's going to know. Well, so here's my philosophy. I'm not going to let anyone try technology until I've tried it first. Really? Yeah, so I was taking it and then. You're saying that with a big pregnant pause because you're currently doing something like that? I'm not doing the reprogramming yet. That's a little dangerous. But the others I've always wanted to know first. My eyesight is starting to go because I'm 51 now. And if I had to read this book, I got Nick Christakis' book. If I'm sitting here reading this book, if I don't have reading glasses on, I got to do this. It's a bit of a struggle. You going to be able to fix that? So potentially, in the mice we can. You can. Well, we don't give them books to read, but their eyesight improves. We can test that. How do you do it? There's a moving screen. How do you test or not how you test, rather. How do you improve their eyesight? We've put these reprogramming genes into a virus, which is already used to treat genetic diseases in the eye. And we inject it straight into the mouse's eyeball. This sounds like the beginning of a horror movie. Yeah, I think it's actually. Or an awesome movie. It's the awesome part that I'm focused on. Well, if you're going blind, one injection from your doctor, and then you take an antibiotic, turn the genes on for as long as you need, and you get your eyesight back, that's not horrific at all. That's pretty incredible. How far away do you think you are of doing that to humans? Well, 2020 will be the first safety study. Wow. But the crazy stuff, the future is, if this all goes well, you have an injection in your vein, let's say when you're 30, and then those viruses infect your body, and they sit there dormant until you need them. So when might you need them? You might have a car accident. Turn them on. You can turn them on with just an antibiotic in a drip or in a pill, or you start to lose your eyesight, take an antibiotic. So you put them in your body almost as an insurance policy, and then you have the option to turn them on in the future. Exactly. Wow. That's what we do in the mice. Now, with every action, we assume there's some negative consequence, or potentially negative consequence, right? We always assume that, but it's not always right. So with the molecules that we've been testing for years now, like NMN, we haven't seen any downside, just longer endurance and protection. So there isn't always a downside to these things. In fact, if you just think NMN is replacing a molecule that we lose over time as we get older, it's just becoming, it's a fairly natural process. No downside, exercising and dieting either.