01 Apr Emil Kendziorra of Tomorrow Biostasis on extending the human lifespan
Posted at 14:43h
in Our Mentors
We love innovation in healthcare and are privileged to have a host of mentors in our ecosystem working on exciting ideas and new thinking in this world. Amongst them, in a very-much future positioned business is Emil Kendziorra, the Founder and CEO of Tomorrow Biostasis. Recently we interviewed Emil on how his activities are focused on extending the human lifespan. In this gripping piece, Emil shares more on his journey, what ‘medical cryopreservation’ involves, views on the greatest future challenge in healthcare, and much more.
1. Please briefly explain your role and your company.
I’m the founder and CEO at Tomorrow Biostasis in Berlin and the President of the Board at a non-profit research foundation in Switzerland called European Biostasis Foundation. Both are working on ways to extend human lifespan. If someone is interested you can find more info at www.tomorrowbiostasis.com or www.emil.bio
2. How did you come to specialize in your field?
Ever since I was a child I was interested in the longevity and life extension field. In my mind, it should be an individual’s choice how long they would like to live. I studied medicine, went into (cancer-) research, and then entrepreneurship to do everything I can to make that happen. The organization I’m now running I don’t plan to sell or leave at any point in time, they are mission-driven organizations for this long-term goal!
3. You are working on some exciting deeptech medtech products, such as medical cryopreservation, are you able to share some insights into this?
Tomorrow Biostasis is a biotech research company that offers what is called “medical cryopreservation”. Cryopreservation uses ultra-low temperature and specific cryoprotective agents to preserve organs or whole bodies to avoid degradation. Should one of our members/customers die, they signed up to be cryopreserved after death for the chance that the disease that led to their death will be curable and in the future resuscitation will be possible. It’s important to state that there is still a tremendous amount of research to be done to make this possible. So it’s just a chance for now. We’re also a biomedical research organization that does that very research.
4. How do you describe your ambition to continue focusing on “longevity escape velocity”?
“Longevity escape velocity” is the idea that at some point in the (potentially far) future, medical technology will have advanced enough that new treatments can cure diseases and improve health so efficiently that every year you live, you can add more than one year of additional life span. Once that is the case, people would be able to choose how long they want to live without diseases or old age limiting their life span. I think this is a very worthwhile goal, albeit I think it will take a very long-time to achieve it (biology is just extremely complex). That is why I decided to focus on cryopreservation.
5. What drives your vision at your business Tomorrow Biostasis?
Providing everybody with the chance to live as long as they want, at an affordable price. I’m personally motivated by that and I think everybody should have the opportunity to choose how long they would like to live. In the end, we’re working to give people a choice about how long they would like to live.
7. What do you see as the greatest healthcare challenge in the future?
Most important from a research/science point of view: solving the replication crisis (i.e. little biomedical research can be replicated), new models to incentive and reward research, better science communication, and novel approaches to research publishing (e.g. DeSci, but quite difficult in detail). Otherwise, realizing the promises of personalized medicine, moving healthcare compensation to an outcome-based system, etc etc etc. Much to do 🙂
8. If you were hosting a dinner party, who would be your dream guests and why?
Anybody who does unique things and/or has a good answer to why they do what they do. Since we actually regularly host dinner parties, feel free to reach out if you want to join 🙂
We thank Emil for his time and the fascinating insights into his activities. Having strong mentors from various fields is so important for our startups. They can learn, grow, develop and advance under the guidance and with the experience of those who have done it before or worked in related fields.