Category Archives: Transhuman News

Google's Bill Maris believes it is possible to live for 500 years. Photo: Stuart Isett/Fortune Brainstorm TECH via flickr.com/fortunelivemedia/

"If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes," Bill Maris says one January afternoon in Mountain View, California. The president and managing partner of Google Ventures just turned 40, but he looks more like a 19-year-old university kid. He's wearing sneakers and a grey denim shirt over a T-shirt; it looks like he hasn't shaved in a few days.

Behind him, sun is streaming through a large wall of windows. Beyond is the leafy expanse of the main Google campus. Inside his office, there's not much that gives any indication of the work Maris does here. The room is sparse clean white walls, a few chairs, a table. On this day, his desk has no papers, no notepads or Post-its, not even a computer.

Here's where you really figure out who Bill Maris is: on his bookshelf. There's a fat text called Molecular Biotechnology: Principles and Applications of Recombinant DNA. There's a well-read copy of Biotechnology: Applying the Genetic Revolution. And a collection of illustrations by Fritz Kahn, a German physician who was among the first to depict the human body as a machine. Wedged among these is a book that particularly stands out to anyone interested in living to 500. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, published in 2005, is the seminal work by futurist Ray Kurzweil. He famously predicted that in 2045, humankind will have its Terminator moment: the rise of computers will outpace our ability to control them. To keep up, we will radically transform our biology via nanobots and other machines that will enhance our anatomy and our DNA, changing everything about how we live and die.

"It will liberate us from our own limitations," says Maris, who studied neuroscience at Middlebury College and once worked in a biomedical lab at Duke University. Kurzweil is a friend. Google hired him to help Maris and other Googlers understand a world in which machines surpass human biology. This might be a terrifying, dystopian future to some. To Maris, it's business.

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This is where he hopes to find, and fund, the next generation of companies that will change the world, or possibly save it. "We actually have the tools in the life sciences to achieve anything that you have the audacity to envision," he says. "I just hope to live long enough not to die."

***

Maris is an unusual guy with an unusual job. Seven years ago, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, tapped him to start a venture capital fund, putting him smack between those tech titans and the sea of ambitious entrepreneurs trying to be just like them. At the time, he was a young entrepreneur himself, with limited investing experience and no clout in Silicon Valley. He'd sold his Vermont-based web-hosting company and was working at a nonprofit, developing technology for cataract blindness in India. This made him exactly the kind of outsider Google was looking for. "Bill was ready to come at this from an entirely new perspective," says David Drummond, who, as Google's chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, oversees Google Ventures as well as the company's other investment vehicles.

Google Ventures has close to $US2 billion ($2.6b) in assets under management, with stakes in more than 280 start-ups. Each year, Google gives Maris $US300 million ($391m) in new capital, and this year he'll have an extra $US125 million ($162m) to invest in a new European fund. That puts Google Ventures on a financial par with Silicon Valley's biggest venture firms, which typically put to work $300 million to $500 million a year. According to data compiled by CB Insights, a research firm that tracks venture capital activity, Google Ventures was the fourth-most-active venture firm in the US last year, participating in 87 deals.

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Google Ventures and Bill Maris' search for immortality

Google's Bill Maris believes it is possible to live for 500 years. Photo: Stuart Isett/Fortune Brainstorm TECH via flickr.com/fortunelivemedia/

"If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes," Bill Maris says one January afternoon in Mountain View, California. The president and managing partner of Google Ventures just turned 40, but he looks more like a 19-year-old university kid. He's wearing sneakers and a grey denim shirt over a T-shirt; it looks like he hasn't shaved in a few days.

Behind him, sun is streaming through a large wall of windows. Beyond is the leafy expanse of the main Google campus. Inside his office, there's not much that gives any indication of the work Maris does here. The room is sparse clean white walls, a few chairs, a table. On this day, his desk has no papers, no notepads or Post-its, not even a computer.

Here's where you really figure out who Bill Maris is: on his bookshelf. There's a fat text called Molecular Biotechnology: Principles and Applications of Recombinant DNA. There's a well-read copy of Biotechnology: Applying the Genetic Revolution. And a collection of illustrations by Fritz Kahn, a German physician who was among the first to depict the human body as a machine. Wedged among these is a book that particularly stands out to anyone interested in living to 500. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, published in 2005, is the seminal work by futurist Ray Kurzweil. He famously predicted that in 2045, humankind will have its Terminator moment: the rise of computers will outpace our ability to control them. To keep up, we will radically transform our biology via nanobots and other machines that will enhance our anatomy and our DNA, changing everything about how we live and die.

"It will liberate us from our own limitations," says Maris, who studied neuroscience at Middlebury College and once worked in a biomedical lab at Duke University. Kurzweil is a friend. Google hired him to help Maris and other Googlers understand a world in which machines surpass human biology. This might be a terrifying, dystopian future to some. To Maris, it's business.

Advertisement

This is where he hopes to find, and fund, the next generation of companies that will change the world, or possibly save it. "We actually have the tools in the life sciences to achieve anything that you have the audacity to envision," he says. "I just hope to live long enough not to die."

***

Maris is an unusual guy with an unusual job. Seven years ago, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, tapped him to start a venture capital fund, putting him smack between those tech titans and the sea of ambitious entrepreneurs trying to be just like them. At the time, he was a young entrepreneur himself, with limited investing experience and no clout in Silicon Valley. He'd sold his Vermont-based web-hosting company and was working at a nonprofit, developing technology for cataract blindness in India. This made him exactly the kind of outsider Google was looking for. "Bill was ready to come at this from an entirely new perspective," says David Drummond, who, as Google's chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, oversees Google Ventures as well as the company's other investment vehicles.

Google Ventures has close to $US2 billion ($2.6b) in assets under management, with stakes in more than 280 start-ups. Each year, Google gives Maris $US300 million ($391m) in new capital, and this year he'll have an extra $US125 million ($162m) to invest in a new European fund. That puts Google Ventures on a financial par with Silicon Valley's biggest venture firms, which typically put to work $300 million to $500 million a year. According to data compiled by CB Insights, a research firm that tracks venture capital activity, Google Ventures was the fourth-most-active venture firm in the US last year, participating in 87 deals.

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Google Ventures provides capital funding for the search for immortality

SOURCE: Regen BioPharma Inc.

Regen Has Raised Almost $700,000 From "Angel" Investors Since December 29, 2014 to Finance Its Ongoing Research

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 10, 2015) - Regen BioPharma Inc. (OTCBB: RGBP) (OTC PINK: RGBP) announced today successful closing of a transaction resulting in acquisition of issued US patent #8,263,571, and associated preclinical data package.The intellectual property covers specific therapeutic agents that gene silence CTCFL.CTCFL, otherwise known as Brother of the Regulator of Imprinted Sites (BORIS) is a gene that is critical for cancer stem cells to survive, in part by inducing expression of telomerase, a protein that creates cellular immortality1.

Thomas Ichim, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Regen is co-inventor of the patent, which was filed in October 2007 by Vendevia Group. Through a private transaction, Dr. Ichim obtained assignment of the patent and preclinical package, which was subsequently assigned by Dr. Ichim to Regen.

"Having co-authored the peer-reviewed publication dating back to 2008 in which potent inhibition of breast cancer was demonstrated by gene silencing of CTCFL2, and having assigned my own gene silencing/immunotherapy patent to Regen3, I am highly enthusiastic that this very promising approach to killing cancer stem cells has now been brought under the Regen umbrella." Stated Dr. Wei-Ping Min, Professor of Immunology at the University of Western Ontario and Member of Regen's Scientific Advisory Board."The use of RNA interference to kill cancer stem cells adds another powerful weapon in Regen's arsenal on the war on cancer."

CTCFL, also termed Brother of the Regulator of Imprinted Sites (BORIS) is a key protein that was originally discovered by Dr. Victor Lobanenkov at the NIH4, which acts as a "master orchestrator" of numerous genes needed for cancer to maintain the properties of cancer5.Dr. Ichim previously co-authored papers with NIH and other academic groups demonstrating that immunotherapy targeting CTCFL results in regression of breast cancer, leukemia, and glioma6,7,8.

"Having worked for several years on developing the CTCFL gene-silencing therapeutic approach, and witnessing first-hand the promise of this technology in terms of specifically targeting tumor stem cells, I am excited that we identified a mechanism of bringing this highly complementary technology into Regen," said Dr. Ichim. "Currently Regen is using gene silencing to block NR2F6 in cancer stem cells.The acquisition of the CTCFL intellectual property allows for performing experiments in parallel, thus significantly reducing developmental costs while doubling the probability of success."

"The possession of an issued US patent in this rapidly evolving space allows for a wide range of possibilities ranging from internal development, to co-development, to outright licensing," said David Koos, Chairman and CEO of Regen."We have initiated discussions with entities in this industry in order to most rapidly optimize value of this asset."

ABOUT REGEN BIOPHARMA INC.: Regen BioPharma Inc. is a publicly traded biotechnology company (OTCBB: RGBP) (OTC PINK: RGBP). The Company seeks to identify undervalued regenerative medicine applications in the immunotherapy and stem cell space. The Company is focused on rapidly advancing these technologies through pre-clinical and Phase I/ II clinical trials. Currently the Company is centering on gene silencing therapy for treating cancer, telomeres and small molecule therapies, along with developing stem cell treatments for aplastic anemia.

Disclaimer: This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying the forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties to which forward looking statements are subject include, but are not limited to, the effect of government regulation, competition and other material risks.

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Regen BioPharma Acquires Issued Patent and Preclinical Data Package for Targeting Cancer Stem Cell