What if every cell in your body came with a built-in “expiration date”?
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Bill Andrews — the geneticist whose team discovered telomerase, the enzyme that controls human aging and cellular lifespan.
At just 10 years old, Dr. Andrews’ father told him: “You should find a cure for aging.” He’s spent his entire life trying to do exactly that.
In this powerful conversation, Dr. Andrews explains:
- Why humans have a maximum lifespan of ~125 years — and how mathematics proves it
- The “ride ticket” analogy that explains telomere shortening in under 60 seconds
- Why 90% of telomere supplements are scams that don’t actually lengthen telomeres
- What TelaVital really does — and what it can’t do (yet)
- How biological immortality could realistically become possible within our lifetime
- Can Telomeres Slow Aging?
Many anti-aging companies don’t lengthen telomeres — they just manipulate the measurements, like firing your least intelligent employees to raise your company’s average IQ.
This is NOT pseudoscience. Not biohacking hype.
This is coming from the scientist who literally helped discover the enzyme that determines how long we live.
If you’re interested in longevity, telomeres, cellular aging, or real anti-aging science — this is a must-watch.
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Guest Biography
Dr. William Andrews, PhD
As a scientist, athlete, and executive, Bill continually pushes the envelope and challenges convention. He has been featured in Popular Science, The Today Show, and numerous documentaries on the topic of life extension including, most recently, the movie The Immortalists in which he co-stars with Dr. Aubrey de Grey. See www.theimmortalists.com/watch.
Bill is known for being a scientist first, focusing on scientific research, allowing others, instead, to market the products that his company discovers. Bill has been a medical researcher in biotech since 1981, focusing on cancer, heart disease, and inflammation research, though his passion has always been aging. In the early-to-mid 1990s, while at Geron Corporation, Bill led the research to discover both the RNA and protein components of the human enzyme called telomerase.
This enzyme is responsible for preventing telomeres from shortening in human reproductive cells, and this is why our children are born younger than we are even though they come from our old cells. Inducing this enzyme to lengthen telomeres in all our cells, not just our reproductive cells, to reverse aging and declining health due to aging, is the principal goal of Sierra Sciences and Sierra Holdings.
Bill was awarded 2nd place as “National Inventor of the Year” in 1997 for his cancer research. Bill earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Population Genetics at the University of Georgia in 1981. He then served as Senior Scientist at Armos Corporation and Codon Corporation, Director of Molecular Biology at Berlex Biosciences and at Geron Corporation, and Director of Technology Development at EOS Biosciences, before starting Sierra Sciences in 1999 where he now serves as President & CEO as well as Chief Scientific Officer. Bill is also a named inventor on over 50+ US-issued patents on telomerase and author of numerous scientific research studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Bill is also an avid ultra-marathon runner. He regularly competes in 50 and 100+ mile races often finishing at the top of his age group. These grueling races have taken him all over the world to race in some of the most extreme environments, from Death Valley to the Himalayas.
His running is presently featured in the movie The High. See www.thehighdoc.com. He considers endurance exercise, when done properly, to be a way to significantly slow down the aging process. Bill’s obsession is to cure aging, and that includes his own aging. His regimen to slow down his own aging and declining health is unique and based on years of his own research.
Show Notes from this episode
00:00 – Introduction
Dr. Barrett introduces Dr. Bill Andrews, highlighting his seminal work in cancer research and anti-aging. Dr. Andrews’ team was responsible for the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme integral to human aging.
01:17 – Guest Introduction & Background
- Dr. Barrett welcomes Dr. Andrews and asks about his background
- Dr. Andrews shares his educational credentials: PhD in Molecular and Population Genetics
- Focus on his work with telomerase and telomeres
01:53 – Early Interest in Aging
- Dr. Andrews describes his lifelong interest in aging
- At age 10, his father suggested he become a doctor and find a cure for aging
- His father’s comment became an obsession that shaped his entire career
- Started anti-aging clubs in high school and college
05:03 – The Hayflick Limit Explained
- The Hayflick Limit: Cells can only divide a certain number of times before entering senescence
- The question: How do cells “count” their divisions?
- Dr. Andrews’ analogy: Cells have “ride tickets” like at an amusement park
- Each cell division uses one ticket; when tickets run out, division stops
09:46 – Why Do We Age? (First Discussion)
Brief segue into the fundamental question of aging, to be addressed more thoroughly later.
09:58 – Graduate School & Career Path
- Double major in biology and experimental psychology
- Experimental psychology provided crucial training in statistical theory, data analysis, and experimental design
- This background made him “a way better biologist”
- Studied molecular genetics and population genetics in graduate school
- Skipped master’s degree and went straight to PhD
15:24 – Telomeres Explained
- Telomeres: DNA sequences at the tips of chromosomes (like aglets on shoelaces)
- Single cell embryo starts with 15,000 bases (10,000 that matter)
- Each cell division loses 40 bases (one “ride ticket”)
- At birth: telomeres are down to about 5,000 bases (125 ride tickets)
- Hayflick Limit varies by cell type: Different tissues have different division capacities
- Neurons don’t reach their Hayflick limit because they stop dividing
- Support cells (oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, Schwann cells) do reach the limit
22:16 – Telomeres as Scientific Fact, Not Theory
- The Hayflick limit is not theoretical—it’s measurable in laboratory research
- Cell catalogs from companies like ATCC show exactly how many divisions cells have left
- You can calculate lifespan based on telomere length
- Researchers pay more for cells with longer telomeres/more division potential
23:27 – Biological Age Testing
- Commercial labs measure telomere length to determine biological age
- Dr. Andrews is co-inventor of telomere length measurement tests
- Measurement challenges: Most techniques (like PCR) are inconsistent
- Recommended lab: Life Length in Spain uses fluorescent microscopy
- Life Length can measure “percent of critically short telomeres”—the best marker of biological aging
- Sierra Sciences tests cost about $1,000 per sample (research only, not consumer service)
25:15 – DNA Methylation vs. Telomere Length
- DNA methylation: Best way to measure biological age according to Dr. Andrews
- However, it’s just a correlation—mechanism not fully understood
- Dr. Andrews believes telomeres control DNA methylation patterns
- His research shows: lengthening/shortening telomeres changes methylation patterns proportionally
- Telomeres as enhancer sequences: They fold over and regulate gene expression
- 90% of zinc finger transcription factors are near telomeres
28:17 – Understanding Telomerase as an Enzyme
- Clarification: Telomerase is an enzyme (indicated by “-ase” suffix)
- Unlike degrading enzymes, telomerase is anabolic—it builds and restores
- Telomerase adds length to telomeres
- Many enzymes in cellular processes (glycolysis, Krebs cycle) are anabolic, not just degradative
30:21 – What is Aging?
- Aging defined: Failure and decline of multiple tissues and organs
- Measuring aging is tricky—reversing biomarkers doesn’t mean reversing aging
- When patients say they want to “cure aging,” they mean looking, feeling, and behaving like they’re 25 again
- The Betty White Test: Dr. Andrews shows photos of Betty White at 25 and 85
- Everyone can tell which photo was taken first
- This is “qualitatively quantitative” measurement
- No biomarker reversal has yet achieved this level of age reversal
40:12 – Why We Age: Evolutionary Perspective
- Evolution’s primary driver: Increasing diversity within species
- Sexual reproduction was the biggest advance for creating genetic diversity
- Key insight: Eliminating the longer-lived increases diversity further
- After raising offspring, older individuals provide minimal new diversity to the species
- Offspring interbreeding creates more diversity than parents rebreeding
- Evolution is about survival of the fittest species, not the fittest individual
- We never “evolved to age”—we accumulated harmful processes with no evolutionary pressure to fix them
- Different species age through different mechanisms
43:27 – Species-Specific Aging Mechanisms
- Only a few animals use telomere shortening for aging:
- Humans, dogs, cats, horses, sheep, pigs, deer, non-human primates
- Rodents (mice, rats, rabbits) don’t rely on telomere shortening:
- They have telomerase in all cells
- They age through oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction
- Their telomeres shorten slowly, accelerating only at end of life
- Humans have 100x more natural antioxidants than mice
- This is why humans aren’t as susceptible to oxidative stress and live much longer than mice
43:53 – Maximum Human Lifespan
- Aging is like “multiple sticks of dynamite” inside cells
- In humans, telomere shortening is the shortest fuse
- Unless unhealthy lifestyle accelerates oxidative stress
- Absolute maximum human lifespan: 125 years (due to telomere math)
- No one has actually lived to 125 because of:
- Poor lifestyle choices
- Genetic problems
- Claims about Jeanne Calment (122 years) are disputed—evidence suggests her daughter assumed her identity to avoid inheritance taxes
- Even with telomerase activation, we’d still face oxidative stress and other aging mechanisms
- Solving telomere problem would give 30+ more years to solve other aging issues
46:19 – Path to Immortality
- Dr. Andrews believes aging can be stopped
- We’re not like “old trucks in a field”—we have cell division to replace damaged cells
- Working on regenerating neurons
- Mentions work on whole brain emulation
- Vision: Brain uploaded to computer during accidents, then uploaded to regenerated body
46:39 – TelaVital Supplement
- TelaVital: Plant extract mixture developed by Sierra Sciences
- USDA Organic certified
- How it was discovered:
- Million-dollar robots test up to 4,000 plant extracts daily
- Testing for ability to turn on telomerase gene in human cells
- Don’t use whole plant extracts (they never work)
- Fractionate plants by molecule size, charge, solubility
- Found over 1,000 molecules that activate telomerase gene
48:48 – How TelaVital Works
- Telomere shortening/lengthening is a tug of war:
- Reproductive cells: It’s a tie (telomeres stay stable)
- Other cells: Only shorteners present (lose 40 bases per division)
- TelaVital adds “lengtheners” to the tug of war
- Not enough to win yet, but slows the shortening rate
- Also reduces accelerated shortening from inflammation and oxidative stress
- Within 3 years, expects next generation that actually wins the tug of war
54:03 – Debunking Other Telomere Products
- Many products claim to lengthen telomeres but don’t produce telomerase
- How they fake longer telomeres:
- Toxic products kill cells with short telomeres → Average length increases without actual lengthening
- Analogy: “Fire your dumbest employees and average IQ goes up without anyone getting smarter”
- Immunogenic products stimulate immune cells with long telomeres → These flood the bloodstream
- Analogy: “Hire geniuses and average IQ goes up without anyone getting smarter”
- Toxic products kill cells with short telomeres → Average length increases without actual lengthening
- Challenge to other companies: Show data that your product produces telomerase
- No other company has provided this data
- Touchstone website shows Sierra Sciences data proving TelaVital’s ingredients induce telomerase expression
55:11 – Product Transparency
- Dr. Barrett notes the honesty in Dr. Andrews’ approach
- Not claiming miracle cure, but truthful about slowing the aging process
- Focus on science over hype
56:31 – Dr. Andrews’ Mission
- “Not in it for the money”
- Personal goal: Be alive for first contact with extraterrestrial life
- When cure for aging is achieved, wants to “drop it from airplanes”
- Vision: Everyone in the world happier and healthier
- “Aging is the dumb thing that makes us less livable”
58:05 – Contact Information
- Email: BAndrews@SierraSci.com
- Dr. Andrews personally answers emails
- Welcomes questions about:
- Aging
- Cancer
- Heart disease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- No charge for consultation—just wants to be helpful
58:33 – Additional Resources
- Sierra Sciences website: www.SierraSci.com
- Click “Key Videos and Documentaries” button
- Comprehensive videos explaining:
- What aging is
- Why we age
- How we age
- How not to age
- Each topic gets full hour-long explanation
- Touchstone Essentials website: TheGoodInside.com
- Information about TelaVital
- Data on Dr. Andrews’ research
- Better marketing presentation than Sierra Sciences site
59:07 – Closing
Dr. Barrett thanks Dr. Andrews for his contributions and incredible work in aging research.
Key Takeaways
- Telomeres are the primary aging mechanism in humans – they shorten with each cell division
- Absolute maximum human lifespan is 125 years due to telomere mathematics
- TelaVital slows telomere shortening but doesn’t yet reverse it
- Most telomere products on the market don’t actually produce telomerase – they manipulate measurements
- Aging can theoretically be stopped, but requires solving telomere problem first, then other mechanisms
- DNA methylation is the best current biomarker for biological aging
- Life Length lab in Spain offers the most accurate telomere testing
- Evolution favors diversity over individual longevity – explaining why we age
Contact & Resources
- Dr. Bill Andrews Email: BAndrews@SierraSci.com
- Sierra Sciences: www.SierraSci.com
- TelaVital Product: TheGoodInside.com
- Life Length Testing: Life Length (Spain)
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