Raising the Dead: Regenerating, Reawakening and Repairing the Human Body!

Andrea Macdonald: [00:05:40] It’s so lovely to meet you. Who are you?

Ira Pastor: [00:06:41] I’m Ira Pastor, the Chief Executive Officer of a life sciences company here in United States called Bioquark and I am very focused on studying the natural world and all the beauty out there in the biologic kingdom and the amazing potential of nature to solve a lot of our human issues with regard to health, wellness and our unfortunate transition into disease and degeneration. I’ve always had a major respect for nature and the amazing organisms that inhabit this planet which, from a health and wellness perspective are much further advanced than we are. And whether that be the regenerating species which can bring back lost or damaged organs and tissues, whether it is limbs or spinal cords or hearts or parts of their brain or whether it is, all the species that can shrug off cancer as if it was the common cold.

Or, even the organisms out there that don’t age, like to age in reverse or even the ones that die and come back. There’s just an amazing amount of clues that nature has put before us for us as humans to learn from and really take the next step in our development and improvement as a species. Combine that with the fact that I am a father. I love my family and children. I have always been a big fan of science fiction and comic books and all the amazing potential out there. I wanted to merge all of these interests.

Ira Pastor: [00:08:51] Absolutely! The first couple years was spent virtually as a tech company spin off from a university in South Florida. After that, we transitioned into our own laboratories and the core focus of what we’re doing is to leverage research that has been around for the past 80 years. In fact, Dr. John Gurdon over in the UK recently got the Nobel Prize in 2012 for this understanding of how time is turned back in cells, tissues and organs in the natural world.

Bioquark covered by The Daily Telegraph: How Dead could be brought back to life.

[00:09:32] We want to elevate this research to the next phase and basically explore how we could take those same dynamics, understand what’s been done over the past 80 years in the petri dish, and leverage it for therapeutic purposes, because underlying much of what we see in the case of regeneration or disease reversion or age reversal is this ability to turn back biologic time and start over.

So, the first couple years after our establishing our own independent lab, we spent a lot of time in the petri dish and in vitro systems recapitulating a lot of what was done in the last 80 years by people like Gurdon etc. Following that, we have developed a rather robust in vivo system in house, for the study in animals, rodents, mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits and cats and how we apply some of this in the pre-clinical non-human sense.

[00:10:33] So, we have studies in oncology, cancer development and cancer reversion. Studying regeneration specifically, we have a focus on the central nervous system, especially following acute damage. Also, we are studying long term gerontological models to understand what is involved in the aging process over the lifetime of a species and what happens at different intervals as that age can be shoved back or turned back to earlier points. Now, we are at an interesting inflection point because we are a U.S. company.

We have a U.S. plan for clinical development which comes online in the next three years under traditional guidance. But, at the same point beyond our borders here in the U.S, we are very active right now in studying abroad with the two hundred plus regulatory systems out there because in today’s day and age in 2018 we truly have a globalized system of medical research and drug development.

So, we’re also out there around the globe looking at different regulatory systems trying to figure out where we can get into human studies, where we can get registration possibly a few years in advance of the U.S. system to become more of a global development company because at the end of the day, while the industry ignored the rest of the world in the past you can’t do that anymore. Really smart people will tell you that if you’re not looking elsewhere, you’re going to be missing a big picture in the next 10, 20, 30 years as the system and industry develops.

Bioquark in the New York Post: How stem cell therapy will attempt to bring the dead back to life.

[00:12:05] So, this is in essence sort of our path and what we’ve been involved in doing as we sort of formalize our strategy and mission.

Ira Pastor: [00:12:21] Well, as I mentioned in the U.S. we have a plan to get to registration for an orphan fast track designation within the next 5 years. However, at the same time we are beyond a pharmaceutical company and pharmaceutical development. We are also very active in non-Rx development. So, we will be bringing products to market within the next few months with cosmetic partners, with nutritional product partners in different countries around the world. So, we have both short term and long-term plans in our strategy.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:13:01] Are you able to talk about the specifics at this point?

[00:13:09] You say that you’re working with some organizations to bring some of these things to market or elements of them to market in the next few months. Are you able to name any names?

Ira Pastor: [00:13:22] Well, I can’t give you specific names at this point in time. But we have partners specifically in the Netherlands that are going to be bringing a line of cosmetic products online which we will be disclosing shortly and we are partnered up with a group in Southeast Asia in Thailand that is also involved in the cosmetic and nutritional side of the business.

[00:13:46] We will be doing more public disclosure of these things but they are primarily on the non-Rx side of the business at the moment.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:14:02] You’re doing quite a big media push at the moment. I was just wondering what the key objective in doing that is?

Ira Pastor: [00:14:12] The objective is in essence to raise awareness of the whole space. I come out of the pharmaceutical industry and I’ve spent, you know the last 30 years in one facet or another of this system and you know too often in talking to people that the bio life sciences space is seen as evil, or boring or always promising things that are 30 years out.

[00:14:34] I want to get the message out that is not always the case. We’re at a very interesting inflection point in regard to addressing some of the most dreaded diseases responsible for our suffering and death. The last hundred years has seen an amazing expansion in treatment potential from this industry. But when it comes to cures for any of the chronic degenerative diseases that are responsible for our death we have not.

[00:15:24] So, I want to get the message out there that there is a secondary industry that is developing here. When I look at the traditional pharmaceutical industry more as a treatment centered, that there will be and there is a secondary industry developing that is going to be much more focused on eliminating disease and turning it back by reverting it and curing as opposed to just treating.

So, that’s sort of the mission of getting the message out there. Also wanting to generate excitement especially within the young community in this area. Too often when we think about technology nowadays, we think of those little apps on our phones. Gratification is immediate in that technology space.

[00:16:09] I wanted to reiterate the fact that bio tech and life sciences technology is exciting. And there’s a lot of activity. There’s a lot of activity and things are going to be coming fast and furious in the coming years which is really going to shake things up.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:16:35] Can you talk to us about ReAnima?

Ira Pastor: [00:16:36] Absolutely. ReAnima is a project of ours which was specifically set up to address what we felt was a very underserved area of the bio sciences, namely the severe disorders of consciousness. And whether that be a persistent vegetative state, a coma or the end of the disorders of consciousness spectrum, which is brain death.

How we could begin to connect a lot of what we are learning in the area of regenerative medicine and central nervous system regeneration, what we’re learning in the area of cognitive neurosciences and what we have known as a legitimate ethical research niche of living cadaver research which has been going on for the last 30 years and how we can blend this all together for some really important insights.

To touch on an area that may be unpalatable to some but it is something that we have defined and understood since 1968 as the definition of death around the world and an irreversible condition. But in the year 2018, half a century later, this area which we haven’t been willing to explore as a species, at Bioquark we think that it is a legitimate area of exploration and one that will have a tremendous amount of trickle-down effects on all of the chronic degenerative diseases of the central nervous system, beyond just obviously addressing the issue of what life means and what death means. So, it is not core but it is definitely something that we are very interested in actively pursuing and it is part of our program.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:18:21] Would you like to live forever?

Ira Pastor: [00:18:25] I would like to live in a healthy state for a much longer period of time than evolution and natural selection have granted. So, if one takes into account that on average humans are given around 75 years of life span, a fraction of that which is in truly exceptional health and health span. Sure, I would love to. I would love to see the future go beyond what evolution has granted us.

Does that mean I want to live substantially longer in terms of thousand-year life spans? Ah, we’ll talk about that when we start breaking through some of the barriers but I sure would love to have the opportunity to make ninety the new thirty and be able to live a vibrant life for much longer than is currently possible.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:19:30] Vigne Kozacek, founder of The Innovation Squad has sent in a question for you. His concern is, if we live for hundreds of years and possibly become immortal, what sort of impact will that have on population and the resources?

Ira Pastor: [00:19:30] It is a great question. Well, there’s two parts to the immortality equation. You must solve aging. You must solve death. And clearly, although people will debate it, there are over population, death rate, birth rate issues and so forth. If you no longer die and you slow the aging process, there are some fundamental issues that will have to be addressed as a society.

I point out that if we are capable of doing both of these things in terms of biologic aging and death reversal, then we should be able to address as a society any problem, whether that is energy production, whether that is abundant agriculture, whether that is geo engineering, environmental engineering, appropriate stewardship of many of the resources that we take for granted. Things will undoubtedly have to change. But we do not believe that they will be insurmountable, by any means.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:21:26] Stephen Cave, who wrote the book Immortality and is the executive director and head of research at the Leverholme Institute believes that there is a possibility of making the benefits of AI accessible to everyone. How will it be managed?

[00:22:02] I mean, you’ve just said that if humanity is able to achieve X Y Z, we will achieve the scaling problem but we have these huge imbalances in society now. I don’t really like the terms third and fourth world but are those things, those extremes not going to be exaggerated in the new world that we create?

Ira Pastor: [00:22:38] I believe that if we create them intelligently there will not be the issue that is predicted. When I say this, I mean in the context of being intelligent about the way we ultimately develop such innovations in this particular space in terms of biology and the life sciences. Whether it be penicillin, aspirin, the opiates, quinine and so forth, they happened over a hundred years ago and when one looks at the history of true innovations and their respective costs over time, how much real improvement over the original improvement have been made?

It is fairly slim and so I know people will point out these million-dollar gene therapies and other ridiculously priced forms of tissue engineering and all sorts of other possibilities that are coming down the line. But I point out doing things intelligently. I don’t want to promote my company too much but our company is taking a 20th Century approach to dealing with some of these issues and implementing them as opposed to a much more radical 21st Century approach. I believe in the ability to have everyone at the table in participating, using and utilizing these tools. It will not be the case of creating two societies. Obviously, as a human, society we will need to deal with some of the bigger issues. I have faith in humanity that if we can get over this hurdle, there’s no hurdle we can’t get over. We should be able to solve the rest.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:25:25] In his book The Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari says that we have no idea how these exponential technologies are going to interact with each other and we don’t know how the progress in nano tech, for example, will be affected by the progress in quantum physics. Are we doing enough to put legislation and policing in place to ensure that things are done properly? You mentioned that your company is taking a 20th Century approach to the way you operate. It doesn’t therefore follow that all other organizations within exponential technology behave as well as yours.

In his book Technology versus Humanity, Gerd Leonhard puts a case for establishing a committee, a group of people for want of a better word who will monitor this progress, who will ensure that not only as many people as possible benefit but that something terrible does not arise out of it. What’s your opinion, should we be doing more to establish a framework in which this progress operates?

Ira Pastor: [00:27:10] Absolutely. I think that we are behind in regard to this. I can’t speak too much about artificial intelligence or quantum computing or some of the other mind-blowing possibilities but I can speak about biology and life sciences and don’t think that anything has been done, clearly because no one until recently has even believed that some of this is possible. It’s just been the very nature of the biotech biopharma system.

Life extension and immortality is not coming for a long time. Well maybe that’s not the case. So, obviously we have to do a lot more from a perspective of legislation and oversight and international bodies that can spend time on really coming up with the plans and big picture discussions for an inevitable post human world, as some like to describe it, that is coming rather rapidly.

[00:28:33] We spend time discussing this in the human enhancement group at The World Economic Forum and debating and discussing some of these topics. But yes, we have a tremendous amount of ducks to get in a row, whether it is our fear of biology, or AI or quantum computing or any of these other really unique topics. Many people we have fallen decades behind in drug development. We haven’t fallen decades behind in these new areas because they haven’t existed before. We have a lot of catch up to do on many fronts. It might have to happen at a more exponential pace than we anticipate. There is not a day that goes by that some very unique discovery is not made in some of these related fields.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:29:56] You are a pharmacist. Which other scientists are you working with?

Ira Pastor: [00:29:57] We all work with a variety of different individuals around the world, with a rather broad spectrum of capabilities. We work with embryology, with clinical medicine folks, neurology. We partnered at one point with someone in Pharmaco epidemiology, so, the full spectrum. The concept of biologic reversion in nature requires a lot more than this traditional pharmacological thinking in regard to biologic moieties that impact genomic outputs. When it comes to some of the things that are involved in regeneration, repair and reversion it goes beyond the traditional tools involved.

So, embryology doesn’t typically show up in the pharmaceutical industry very much. We have studied the reversal of time not just in organisms both human and not, not just the reversion process of regulatory states of tissues themselves but also the regeneration process because they are intricately connected, whether we are talking about restarting time in an embryo or a limb. So, we have been rather broad in bringing all thoughts to the table. It is a multi-disciplinary approach.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:32:22] You mentioned in one of your talks recently that pharmaceutical company, Merck have teamed with the Chinese government to establish an island where cancer patients can go to try out trial drugs which have not come to market yet. That certainly sounds quite forward thinking. What is your reaction to how the pharmaceutical companies are addressing the big health issues?

Ira Pastor: [00:33:04] Well, my core reaction to how we address big health issues is, technically I am not in big pharma anymore but I spent enough time there, they address the big health issues horribly. The model is one of addressing the genomic output, so the symptoms of disease as opposed the upstream biologic factors that cause disease. That being said, what Merck recently did addresses was something that is quite crucial to people which is expanded access. People have realised the amazing clinical gap around the world. In other words, the millions of patients that have no option. No ability to access clinical trials and expanded access programs in various countries.

[00:34:13] A very small percentage of patients, in cancer for example, less than 5 percent of anyone dying of cancer who has gone through the window of existing treatment even seeks out a clinical trial in the world today which is insanity in its own right. So this area that we’ve briefly mentioned in relation to the globalization of medical training and medical research nowadays was once seen as niche in terms of medical tourism and pharmaceutical tourism. When you have the fifth largest pharmaceutical company world teaming up with the largest country in the world to do something creative like this you realize that times are changing.

[00:34:56] One can only look at Harvard Medical School operating in Dubai, Cornell operating in Qatar and Newcastle University operating in Malaysia to realize that this is becoming a globalized system. So, I think it’s a pretty good thing.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:35:43] Ron Gelman, a counselor has sent in a number of comments, one of which was, “Can we really deny people progress, even if initially an elite group gain the benefits of that progress? As with any progress in the last hundred years it always starts with an elite few having access to it and as prices drop more people will have access to that so-called progress.” This brings to mind another question that ideaXme asks in these interviews which evaluate the impact of exponential technology. “How will this impact our rights as humans. A, if we deny people progress and B, if we only offer it to an elite few initially?”

Ira Pastor: [00:37:00] I can’t speak for everyone, but it is within our strategy to make what we do available to anyone and any healthcare system around the globe. That’s why we’ve focused on traditional biologic development as opposed to the next generation million dollar a shot possibility. So, we clearly understand that we do not want to create a two-tiered society.

Ira Pastor: [00:37:19] I can’t speak for the potential of AI or other stuff that is coming but in terms of biology and biotech, I think that there are ways if we’re intelligent and we do things the right way to address that but as far as our human race, absolutely. You know we discussed offline the issues of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including Article three the Right to Life and that is something that clearly violates that.

Ira Pastor: [00:38:06] Article 5 says that no one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading treatment but I think that everyone who has had a loved one go through cancer therapy via today’s system realizes that is not always the case.

Ira Pastor: [00:38:15] We have U.N. Rights in Article 13 to move freely but in people with a spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis or other forms of paralysis, that right is violated.

Ira Pastor: [00:38:27] In Article 16 we have the right to start a family but in cases of biologic, pathologic or age-related infertility, that is not the case.

[00:39:08] Now, clearly there are some rights in terms of the international order and social systems that we owe a debt to. But once again, I believe that these are manageable if we do things right.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:39:30] Are you a religious man?

Ira Pastor: [00:39:33] I am glad you brought it up because usually people think that anyone operating in the area of ageing or death has to be an atheist. I am not an atheist. I was raised as a Conservative Jew. I am a reformed Jew now. I consider myself a fairly spiritual person. I am not involved in any of this because of a fear of death, or what comes next.

[00:40:16] Just as Article 18 in the United Nations Bill of Human Rights, it clearly states the ability to practice religion and change religion based on our understanding. Religion is all about seeking truth. And I think too often religion and science have been diametrically opposed to one another but actually, I believe that science and religion brought together in the right way can support each other very nicely in a lot of these areas. Whether that’s looking beyond the curtain of death, or sort of understanding this unfolding space that we’re seeing in terms of non-central nervous system information storage and consciousness. There is so much to learn that could benefit each segment, I think.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:41:14] What sparked your interest in biotech? What set you along that path?

Ira Pastor: [00:41:24] Well, several things. My love of science fiction and comic books and wanting to create the future from a very young age. Also, I watched my father die of spinal cancer. As a young child, I watched my maternal grandfather die of heart disease. I watched my mother die of lung disease.

Ira Pastor: [00:41:59] I put this together, with having hung out in a trillion-dollar industry which has been unable in the year 2018 to address any of the chronic diseases responsible for my loved ones degeneration and death.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:42:17] Are you looking for investment in your organization?

Ira Pastor: [00:42:22] We are a biotech company at our core. The old joke goes, if you are not raising money constantly, you are not doing your job correctly. So, yes, we’re always raising money.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:42:35] Are you looking for collaborators and/or employees?

Ira Pastor: [00:42:45] Collaborators always, we are constantly on the lookout for suitable companies, hospitals, fast moving consumer goods companies. We partner with everyone and anyone who shares our vision in mind. Employees? Not at the moment.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:43:11] Out of everyone within the biotech industry, who would you most like to work with? Have you had trouble getting in front of a particular organization or person that you would like to get in front of?

Ira Pastor: [00:43:23] Having 30 years in the Pharma industry I am pretty good at getting in front of people. Getting in front of the right investors is always a tough thing. Sure, I’d like to sit in front of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and give them a thirty second elevator pitch.

Andrea Macdonald: [00:44:09] Out of everyone you could meet in the world who would you most like to meet and what question would you like to ask that person?

Ira Pastor: [00:44:40] There are several people on that list but I would have to say I would love to spend some time with Thomas Edison. I see people in this industry who have one failure and they pack up. I would love to have gone back and spoke to Edison right at the middle point. I would love to ask him, “What keeps you going?”

Andrea Macdonald: [00:46:12] In your opinion, which is the most authoritative book on exponential technology.

Ira Pastor: [00:46:35] I am a big fan of the future but I find the past much more exciting. A book that I recommend to everyone actually comes from the 1970’s and is called Shuffle Brain and it has to do with research that was going on at the University of Indiana on brain removal and brain transplantation. These are topics that are talked about as futuristic today but they actually happened in the 1970’s. Too much of what we have forgotten has the clues, in my opinion to address many problems and too often scientific research is buried or for some reason or another does not see the light of day.

Andrea Macdonald [00:48:06] To all those future creators or people considering taking the plunge what are your words of wisdom and recommendation about what to do next. If they’re teetering on the edge shall I, shan’t I? Am I brave enough? The world is watching. Dare I make the plunge? What would you say to them.

Ira Pastor: [00:48:31] I would say don’t get involved in this space unless you can deal with rejection, failure and the realization that all of this, whether it is biology, whether it is information technology, whether it is the new concepts, it is going to take time. It didn’t happen overnight for the innovators who succeeded in the nineteenth century. It is going to take time. If you have tough skin and you don’t worry about what people think or say about you, come on get involved!

Andrea Macdonald: [00:55:43] Ira Pastor, CEO Bioquark, thank you very much for your time!

Ira Pastor: [00:55:43] My pleasure.

This interview will shortly be available in audio format on the ideaXme iTunes and Soundcloud channels. This article will be also re-published on our blog.

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Credits: Andrea Macdonald interview video, text, and audio

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