Prologue

I’ll be honest with clients about something personal: I plan to live to 151. That’s not a typo and not a joke — it’s where I’ve landed after watching what’s happening in longevity science, and part of why I’m willing to be an early adopter in my own body.

Earlier this year I went through ThroneBio’s Stem Cell Educator treatment. The idea isn’t to add new cells so much as to retrain the immune system — exposing it to signals designed to recalibrate how it responds, rather than just suppressing or replacing what’s
already there.

Now I’m partway through a second treatment: Immunis Biomedical’s IMM01-STEM, a stem cell-derived secretome given as a series of injections. Where ThroneBio targets the immune system, IMM01-STEM is aimed at muscle and metabolic function — the thesis being that a lot of age-related muscle loss is a signaling problem, not just a tissue problem. Early data on gait speed and mobility in older adults is promising, though it’s still investigational, and no product is FDA-approved yet.

Both treatments share an idea I find compelling: aging isn’t just wear and tear; it’s a breakdown in how our cells talk to each other. If that’s right, some of the most interesting medicine right now isn’t about replacing what’s worn out — it’s about restoring the signal.

I’m not sharing this to sell anyone on stem cells. I’m sharing it because I think the next decade of medicine will look different from the last one, and I’d rather be a few steps ahead and tell you what I’m learning as I go.