More information on Exosomes.
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Dr Paul Robbins Interview, Rejuvenation with Young Stem Cell Exosomes:
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Hi everybody. My name is Nicolás Cherñavsky, and I’m the president of the Rejuvenation Science Institute (ICR), the non-profit entity from Brazil that is reproducing (together with Unicamp university) Katcher’s seminal experiment of rats rejuvenation. Today, I found out this forum conversation about Katcher’s compound, and I’m writing this because it’s very hard for our research group to talk to people interested in the reproduction of the experiment. My wife Nina and I were interviewed two times in Modern Healthspan YouTube channel, and there was a few other mentions and a podcast interview in the specialized media, but that’s all. However, I know there are many people interested in the experiment, so I can update you here about what is going on. Our institute is not only non-profit, but also willing to share all the data and results, immediately. In my opinion, secrecy in the rejuvenation science (because of commercial reasons, mainly) is seriously hampering the advance of the field.
Our institute sends a monthly newsletter about the experiment to our subscribers — you can subscribe to it in the website of our institute: rejuvenescimento dot org. Today I talked to the pigs farmer. It’s everything going well in that regard. Also, we are talking with Steve Horvath’s foundation about the measurement of the epigenetic age. Tomorrow, our experiments will be presented in a poster in the following event in Paris, about extracellular vesicles. The authorization for the experiment with the rats was already issued by the university. Well, there is a lot of information and updates in our website, and also in the newsletters we sent in the recent months to our subscribers, which can be read in our website. We already raised almost 70% of the funding necessary for the experiment (the total is US$ 75,000, so we raised around US$ 52,000 up to now). You can ask me anything we want here, that’s why we founded our institute — because we were tired of so much secrecy in the rejuvenation field, and we decided to do the necessary things ourselves, instead of eternally waiting for others. The website of our research institute can be accessed through the link to our newsletter mentioned above (I can’t put more than 2 links in this message because I’m a “new user” of the forum).
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@nico_cher It’s great to have you here, and thanks for your post. I saw the interview you did with Modern Healthspan before. I’m sure there are many others, like me, who are interested in the results of your research. Keep us posted, and thank you for the informative post!
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Amazing that you’re doing this work. Saw your video and donated some money. It’s the only way to find out if the results were real. Honest science is the only way to go. Keep it up,
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Looking forward to seeing results. How is it coming along?
Hi. We need to wait until June 2026 to inject the small extracellular vesicles in the old rats, as only then they will be 25 months old, which is the age the rats were injected in the original Katcher’s experiment. We would prefer to start earlier, but those were the oldest Sprague Dawley rats we found at the moment of the experiment planning. The rats are in the university Unicamp animal facility right now. The experiment is a collaboration between our research institute (ICR) and the university Unicamp. Regarding the pigs, we made an agreement with a farm near our city, Campinas (Brazil), to collect the blood of the pigs at the regular slaughter, which will happen around May 2026. We are also still raising the funds to carry out the experiment, as we raised 70% of the total up to now. The total is US$ 75,000, and we raised around US$ 53,000. The link for donation is in our website, rejuvenescimento dot org . If the rats rejuvenate, we intend to keep them alive as a longevity test, but as it’s not sure the rats will rejuvenate, the cost of the longevity study is not included in the amount above mentioned. We had some donations of relatively high amount, from DoNotAge dot org and The Healthy Life Extension Society (Heales), but small amount donations are also very important.
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Thank you very much for the update! 
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Is there any news about what Harold Katcher is doing at the moment, or how his new company is coming along? I remember reading a rumor somewhere that he had partnered to set up a lab with Greg Fahy in Salt lake City, is there any truth to this? I’m just looking for any info or update as Dr. Katcher’s research fascinates me and ever since he left Yuvan its been radio silence, more or less.
Hi Hugh, my name is Nicolás Cherñavsky. I published — together with my wife Nina — Harold Katcher’s book, The Illusion of Knowledge, through our publisher NTZ. I keep contact with him, and his is 81 years old now. Last year, my wife and Nina decided to repeat the seminal experiment of Harold Katcher, with the help of professor Marcelo Mori, from the University of Campinas (Unicamp - Brazil). So, Nina and I founded last year the Rejuvenation Science Institute (ICR), and we are following the procedure Katcher described in his article in Geroscience published in 2023 to isolate the extracellular particles and inject them in old rats to rejuvenate them.
Last year (2024), our institute, together with Unicamp, isolated the particles and injected them into young rats to assess potential immunogenicity and toxicity, and no such problems were observed. Now, we are preparing to inject the extracellular particles in old rats in June 2026, and if the rats rejuvenate, we will let them live in a lifespan experiment, injecting the particles each 3 months. We are a non-profit research institute, and the reproduction of Katcher’s seminal experiment costs US$ 75,000, which we are raising by crowdfunding. Up to now, we raised around US$ 53,500 (from which US$ 25,000 were donated by DoNotAge dot org and US$ 10,000 by Heales, and the rest by many other donors). In our website (rejuvenescimento dot org), we explain our reproduction of Katcher’s seminal experiment. Also, it’s possible to make a donation. Nina and I are also fascinated by Katcher’s work, and it’s precisely because of that that we are reproducing his seminal experiment, as we need to know if rejuvenation was invented or not. If the rats rejuvenate, and we are able to keep them young, maybe we could have the first biologically immortal mammals.
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@nico_cher - That’s incredible work and thank you for advancing his work forward and providing a potential confirmation of his experiment.
You mention you stay in contact with Dr Katcher - do you know if he’s still working on anything or what he’s been up to? I find it perplexing that if he’s 81 and the rejuvenation works that he wouldn’t do more than just his one hand. Any thoughts there you’re willing to speak to?
Secondly, is the June 2026 start date such to provide time for crowd funding? Age the mice? Other?
Third, are you also using extracellular particles from pigs? I believe that’s what he was using correct?
Thanks for the additional clarifications.
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Looking forward to the funding being complete and this important work beginning!
Hi. Regarding Dr. Katcher, what you say is absolutely right, it’s a perplexing situation. But you should know for your life experience that there are no shortage of perplexing and contradictory situations in this world, as reality is much more complex than we usually think. Dr. Katcher is working in his research, but the intensity and velocity of that research is what it’s possible for him at his age, and as this is an urgent matter, we can’t deposit on him all the responsibility of the world, we have to carry on with the research.
The date of June 2026 exists because the rats need to receive the injections when they are 25 months old, as in Katcher’s original experiment, and the oldest rats we found (in Unicamp university animal facilities) were around 9 month old, so we have to wait until they are 25 months old in June 2026. However, indeed, that allowed more time for the crowdfunding campaign, and to prepare the experiment itself, as besides of rats, we needed pigs (for which we already talked to a farmer who raises pigs), and many other details, such as the formal agreement with the university, buying the materials and equipments, etc.
Regarding what we are using for the injections, we are following the isolation procedure Katcher described in his article in Geroscience in 2023. Professor Mori convinced Nina and I that we should call them extracellular particles, because despite the fact that small extracellular vesicles should be present, maybe there are other particles which are non small-EVs. So, we are calling it Pig Plasma Extracellular Particles (PPEPs). We published a scientific article in the European Journal of Biological Research, with the name " Feasibility of intravenous injection of pig plasma extracellular particles into rats: an acute study" (it’s easy to find in Google), in which we describe the experiment our institute did with the university last year, in which we injected the PPEPs in young rats to assess potential acute toxicity and immunogenicity.
I hope you were able to access the website of our institute, whose address is rejuvenescimento dot org, in which we explain more about our research and our work, and we have there the links for the crowdfunding campaign. We are funding the experiment in that way because we want to be able to tell everything (methods, materials and results) immediately, independently if they are positive or negative. We don’t want to have any intelectual property, just advance with the research until human rejuvenation is achieved, which we expect to do in 2028 in a clinical trial. Any amount to the crowdfunding is important, as our long term vision is not a few people giving a lot, but a lot of people giving a bit.
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Hi, thank you! I just replied a long text to mjmj with some details about everything involving the experiment and the crowfunding. But yes, looking forward to complete the funding. However, I would like to say that the work already begun, despite the injection into the rats weren’t done yet, as the preparation of the experiment involves many things (many of which we already did), as to find the rats, to take care of the rats, to find the pigs farm, to buy materials and equipments, to formalize the agreement with the university, to get the approval for the ethics commitee for the use of animals, to hire the appropriate people and train them, etc, etc, etc. And then, to inject the extracellular particles in the rats. If you can in any way help our institute with the crowdfunding, that would be very important, as as I told mjmj, our long term vision is not a few people giving a lot, but a lot of people giving a bit, so any amount counts. Our website is rejuvenescimento dot org.
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Am I the only one here who finds this whole story very odd. A scientist finds a substance that extends life 54%, writes a book about it, moves towards research in larger animals, a company gets started……and then it all just falls through the cracks?
Like in the movie Medicine Man. Oops we found a miracle and then misplaced it?
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It is strange. Part of me wants to be very skeptical, and for a while, I had lost confidence in E5, until I saw how long ‘Sima’ lived.
With Sima, I think one of two possibilities is true.
- The experiment (which was in India) was somehow done improperly or even fraudulently done; at least with Sima.
- E5 works dang well.
Remember, Sima lived for 48 months, The previous record holder for long-lived Sprague-Dawley rats was 45.5, which was obviously a result of extreme caloric restriction from birth.
And Sima had only 5 injections after middle age, and no injections for the last 12 months of her life.
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Hi Karl. For what you say, I see that there are some parts of the story that maybe you don’t know, so I will tell you about it. The “substance” was a secret for 3 and half years, until October 2023, when Katcher published an article in the journal Geroscience describing the whole isolation process, so then we learnt that the “substance” was extracellular particles containing small extracellular vesicles from young pigs plasma. Also, when that article was published in 2023, Steve Horvath had already updated his epigenetic age clocks, so the rejuvenation wasn’t of 54% anymore, but of 67%. You say that the company started, and then “it all just falls trough the cracks”. An important fact is that according to Google Patents, the patent wasn’t granted yet. Also, Katcher is 81 years old. So, what happened with the company is plausible. However, I agree that the whole story is odd. At the same time, there are many elements in the story that indicates that it’s possible that those extracellular particles really rejuvenated the rats, including the many scientific articles published by other scientific groups in recent years showing that small extracellular vesicles (even from other species) could rejuvenate mammals. So, it’s precisely the ambiguity of this research that led my wife and I to start this initiative of reproducing the experiment, in a non-profit environment, with total transparency of materials, methods and results, without seeking any intelectual property. We want to know if it’s true, you see? I’m in doubt about the original experiment of Katcher since I read his article for the first time more than 5 years ago. And I’m still in doubt. Our experiment exists precisely because of this doubt.
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Hi Hamtaro. The doubts about Sima experiment are well explained in your post. So, as I just explained to Karl, those doubts are an example of what drives my wife and I to reproduce Katcher’s seminal experiment. I see many people in the rejuvenation field that either think that Katcher’s experiment results are real or think they are not real. I don’t think that those are the only two alternatives. In my case, I’m in doubt, because at the same time that there are strange elements in the story, there are many indications that it’s true. So, I can’t simply continue with this doubt, since if the experiment was valid, the whole world could change. This needs to be clarified as soon as possible.
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@nico_cher You and your wife are doing a courageous scientific experiment. I am interested in seeing your results, and I am sure many people here are too. I wish you all the best and I hope you can beat Sima’s record!
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a new video and interview Nicolás @nico_cher and Nina
The video explores efforts to reproduce pig plasma experiments that claim to reverse aging in rats.
Here are the key points from the video “Reproducing Rejuvenation: Inside the Pig Plasma Longevity Experiments”:
Background and Motivation
- The video features an interview with Nicolás and Nina from the Rejuvenation Science Institute in Brazil, who are working to reproduce headline-making results from experiments where concentrated plasma fractions from young pigs were injected into aging rats.
- The original research suggested dramatic rejuvenation effects, including up to 54% epigenetic age reversal in rats, but was based on a small sample and lacked detailed methodology, prompting skepticism and a need for independent replication.
- The Rejuvenation Science Institute was founded to openly reproduce these experiments and share all results, positive or negative, to advance longevity science.
Scientific Rationale
- The approach is inspired by heterochronic parabiosis (connecting the circulatory systems of young and old animals), which has shown that young blood can rejuvenate older animals.
- The pig plasma experiments aim to isolate and concentrate youth-promoting factors from young pig blood, then inject them into old rats to see if aging can be reversed at the molecular and functional level.
- The theory behind the experiments is that aging is regulated by systemic signaling, and that plasma contains factors capable of resetting cellular aging programs.
Experimental Details
- The plasma fraction is prepared by centrifuging pig blood, precipitating extracellular particles, and further purifying them through chromatography and dialysis.
- Initial safety tests showed no acute toxicity or immune reaction in rats, and the next phase will test for actual rejuvenation effects.
- The upcoming experiment (scheduled for June 2026) will use 40 rats in four groups (old treated, old control, young treated, young control) and measure epigenetic age, organ function, and behavioral outcomes over several months.
- If positive results are seen, the team plans to extend the study to longevity experiments and further molecular characterization.
Open Science and Collaboration
- The institute is committed to transparency, publishing all methods and results, and collaborating with other scientists and organizations.
- Funding is provided through donations and crowdfunding, with a goal of making the research accessible and reproducible by others.
- The team invites scientists and supporters to visit Brazil and observe the experiments firsthand.
Implications and Cautions
- If the results are reproducible, it could represent a major breakthrough in aging research, potentially leading to therapies that systemically reduce age-related disease risk.
- However, the team and other scientists caution that results in rats may not translate directly to humans due to species differences.
- The ultimate goal is to identify the signaling mechanisms behind rejuvenation, which could allow for synthetic or targeted interventions in the future.
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