Follistatin Gene Therapy Results You Won’t Believe | Minicircle’s Jay Spall

Folletin is this amazing protein that inhibits myostatin activin. And for lay listeners, myostatin activin usually end up blocking muscle growth. So as you get older, these proteins can increase in your body. So follistatin lowers these two proteins, allowing you to put on more muscle and in the process also reducing your adipose tissue or increasing your lean mass, essentially. Right.

Welcome to the Dr. Joy Kong podcast. This is where I have a chance to share with you some of the latest developments in the space of holistic health, longevity and wellness. I have always honored intellectual curiosity and scientific rigor combined with real world practicality. My goal is that what you learn here will help you live longer and live better. Hope you enjoy the journey with me.

Welcome Back to the Dr. Joy Kahn podcast. You know, I'm here to make your life healthier and happier and live longer. And I bring together some of the top scientists, entrepreneurs to introduce to you new technologies and interesting approaches to health. So today I'm beyond excited because we're going to talk about gene therapy and.

I have an expert here with me, Jay.

So, Jay Spah, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

Yes, I'm so excited. So I want to introduce you just a little bit to the audience. You are a senior executive at Mini Circle, which is a pioneering company in gene therapy. And so you guys are going to revolutionize a lot of things in health. You have over 15 years experience in biochemistry, scientific research, and also your experience in health and wellness. So you are really excited about bringing transformative technologies into health. You also have a pretty interesting personal journey that really spurred this passion and you combine that with your experience in scaling businesses to bring very exciting technologies into the world. So I really want to dig deep into just what the technology is about and also your own journey and then the things you've seen of how it transformed other people's lives. So let's start by maybe tell us a little bit how you even got to gene therapy, which is so new, right? It's newer than stem cell therapy. So tell us a little bit.

Absolutely. Firstly, I really want to thank you for having me here. I've known you for some time now. I visited your clinic a few months back and I had a fantastic experience. I also got to learn about you, and you are not just a doctor, but you are an amazing businesswoman and I really appreciated your work ethic and all the projects you were involved in. So we hit it off really well. So I'm genuinely very excited to talk about the Things I'm involved in, but also. Just speak with you.

Yes, yes, I know. I had a great time learning from you, chatting with you, love your energy. So. Yes. And you have a very interesting journey. Some big struggles in your own health.

Yes, yes. And I can start with that. You know, ultimately, that's what led me into the position I'm in and the field that I'm working in. I had a spinal injury when I was a child and ended up having. We were an immigrant family in U.S. poor family. I was sent to a county hospital to get looked at, and they ended up doing laminectomy, discectomy when I was 16 years old. This is in the early 2000s, when there was not much awareness around opioids and benzos as there is now. So I was a very. I'm very fortunate to have survived, but I was a very textbook case of when somebody gets put on opioids, especially a child, what happens to them. You know, fast forward 15, 20 years go by, and I'm addicted to opioids from the doctor. The drugs that I'm getting.

Right.

And, you know, change your brain chemistry. Absolutely. And it. It's. It's very brutal. And I love sharing the story with people because it's helpful and motivating for people to hear that they can pull out. But when you're on opioids, you get side effects. And when you go back to your doctor and say you don't have energy. Now, the doctors prescribed me Adderall or other, you know, analogs of methamphetamines. I couldn't sleep. And they're like, oh, here's Ambien. I have stomach problems. Now. Here's some proton pump inhibitors. I think I have anxiety. Here's some benzos.

Typical.

Typical. Yeah. Well, these are depression symptoms. Now let's put you on SSRIs. Well, they don't work anymore. I'm just. This is like the 15, 20 years. Right. Well, let's add some Snris. Let's add a booster. Let's add some Wellbutrin. Before I knew it, I was.

I was one of those doctors that were giving those drugs. Sorry.

You know what? This is the first time a doctor has confessed to me, and the first time this has got to be a healing moment for us and for the people to hear. Thank you for coming around.

Admitting.

Yeah. So, you know, 15, 20 years went by, and I was stuck on a chair, still in a lot of pain, on a lot of prescription meds. My life was basically, you know, all on pause. I survived in work. I was relatively bright when I was young. So I kept pushing along. I developed pancreatitis, I had liver problems. Just everything was failing one by one. Right. Being on all those medications for that long. So in 2018, I had an experience near death or death experience in a hospital. My pancreas were really bad. My lipase levels were 756. They're supposed to be 25 to 50. I made a very cautious and aggressive decision that I'm now going to take control of my health. Nobody, no doctor now is going to tell me what to do. I'm now in charge. And that was a very empowering moment. That was December 2018. By middle, by June of 2019, I had lost 100 pounds.

Wow.

So I had ballooned up to 360 pounds because I was immobile and my metabolism was shot and all the organs weren't working well. Yeah. So the transformation was quite rapid. I was diabetic, my A1C was close to 9. In less than three months it went to 5.7. So. So everything started falling back in place. But I think the juice of the story is what did I do? You know, So I went, I had to go very deep. I looked at a lot of the interventional stuffs which you are very familiar with. Interventional IVs, like NADs, NAD IVs, peptides, ozone therapy, EBOO, 10 pass, direct ozone, whatever was out there. I was basically knocking on the door trying to either source it directly or work with a doctor and figure it out. So in that process, it became a really deep passion of mine to do this. And a lot of the people that were witnessing the rapid transformation, they were very curious on what is it that I'm doing. So naturally I got very gravitated towards, I think five years ago, like peptides were very new. They're still new, but now at least people know about them. But general public still beyond GLP1, they're not aware of it. Right. So I went into the peptide industry and did a lot, did consultation work, did some, you know, work with some research labs, even set up a company at one point. And it just slowly started progressing. And I wanted always the latest and greatest. And that's kind of my personality and my mo. And there was biohacking, a very exclusive biohacking event which one of my friends, he's an MD who was putting that together. He invited me to it took a bunch of peptides nad there. We're all just like getting like minded people getting together a Lot of physicians. And there I met this very interesting fellow named Mac. And I immediately fell in love with him. We hit it off really, really well. Mac is the founder of Mini Circle, which is the gene therapy company. So over the years we stayed in touch and at some point the company started to really, you know, grow and expand. And Mac got back in touch with me and I joined. I ended up joining the company.

I see.

And so that was kind of the story what led me to how I got involved in cnn.

So when did they actually first come up with a therapeutic, you know, treatment?

Yeah. So a really good way of looking at this is Mini Circle is essentially a technology company. It's a delivery platform that uses plasmids gene therapy, as you're familiar, probably there's viral vectors, AAVs and there's CRISPR. Historically, gene therapy was still not very accessible to public because CRISPR can cost in the range. It would cost few hundred thousand to millions of dollars. And most of the time it's pretty invasive. People are, you know, they have to be admitted into a facility. And it's also a lifelong commitment because you are editing your genes permanently with these gene therapies that existed before Mini Circle. So there's.

And how are the results from. From crispr, CRISPR therapy?

You know, I'm not an expert in that, but I do believe that all gene therapies, the different modalities and the different applications and ways to do gender gene therapy, they all have space. You know, I can see that many circles gene therapy, and we'll talk a little bit more about that too, is like it's a transient, more temporary gene therapy that lasts about a year. But I can, I want to be transparent with people. I can totally see a world where if somebody is going through a very harsh degenerative disease. Right. And they are in a very tough scenario for interventional purposes, you may want to do CRISPR or a viral vector because it lasts longer. Right. So I feel like there's space for all of it. Right. And different people are wired. The Mini Circles gene therapy is plasmid based, so it's temporary, so it does not integrate into your DNA. It's episomal. It's an episomal DNA which is a circular plasmid. So it has a code for follistatin on it. This plasmid gets injected in your subcutaneous tissue, your abdomen and your. It has a transfection or transformation reagent in there. Once that combines with the plasmid gets delivered into your cell and your cells in that local vicinity. Like size of a pea, call it that size. They get transformed and they then start secreting the product that's on the code. Right. In this case, follow statin.

So it's only in that region.

Only in that region. And then your body has a very good system of just evenly dispersing your blood. Lymphatic, Everything gets dispersed. So it gets, it's systemic, so it's only in that region. You have the factory call it.

Okay.

But then it spreads through.

So be careful with liposuction. Don't liposuction that part out.

Yes, yes. I haven't thought about that. But yes, if you are somebody that is considering that, don't do that.

Okay, I see a little depot.

Yes, exactly, exactly. That's a good way of putting it. Follow Statin was a very obvious natural choice because since it's a delivery platform, right, you can execute on whatever you want. You can put any code you want in there. You can, you can put a code for like bpc, right. You know, any, anything you want. So full of statin made it a really. It was our launch product. And the obvious reason was because it was very sought after in the longevity space, very relatively well researched for about a quarter century. People knew about it. So we're standing on the shoulders of John.

Well, tell us a little bit what, what it does. Follistatin.

Absolutely. So Follistatin is this amazing protein that inhibits myostatin activin and for lay listeners, myostatin, myostatin, actovin usually end up blocking muscle growth. So as you get older, these proteins can increase in your body. So follow Statin lowers these two proteins allowing you to put on more muscle and in the process also reducing your adipose tissue or increasing your lean mass essentially. Right.

And there are other genetic condition where I remember seeing this little kid growing muscles like a bodybuilder. But the kid was like 6, 7 years old. And that's from a genetic mutation, right? That block.

Okay, yes, you're absolutely right. That is correct. And some back in the day when people were looking into Follistat and a lot of the. One of the more popular pictures that would pop up is of a bully, a bulldog or like a bull that's really like ripped beyond belief. That's when you have a full knockout of you just knock out all the myostatin in the body. So that's not what this is. This is very much. It's a very mild ish treatment, you know it's not, it's not knocking out myostatin active in your body, just lowering it.

So Follistatin is natural, naturally produced in the body?

Yes. Follistatin 3, 4, 4. The code that we have on our plasmid, that's a specific one. There's other, older versions of follistatin. This one is biological. This, this version of Follistatin exists in your body biologically. And the ones.

Does that just decrease with age?

It's very, it's variable. Most of the things are decreasing with age. So I think the best answer is yes. But some people have a higher level at a young age. Mostly everybody's going down as you get older. But there is individual variability from individual to individual. Some people just have very little folletin, others have a higher baseline of full statin their whole life. Yes.

So it can help you put on muscle mass?

Yes.

Probably very popular with the weight. One of the bodybuilders. Does it help you lose weight?

Yes. Whenever you're optimizing your metabolism, you know, it kind of leans you a little bit into the anabolic state. Most of the people who've used it, they report almost like a recomposition effect, like getting leaner and putting on muscle at the same time, which can be a bit. It's not, not achievable. But historically, how we viewed it, it is difficult because you're either in a catabolic state or an anabolic state. If you want to lose weight, you got to be calorie deficit. A lot of this information has transformed in the last decade, I would say. But this definitely is a good agent that can, you can go through a transformation and I have some.

And without going to the gym and lifting heavy weights.

Yeah. So this, this actually leads me to. That is partially true. That is partially true. But for the listeners to get a full picture of it. So we, Our study was 43 people that participated in our study, which soon will be published. These were very average individuals. These weren't like athletes or biohackers. Average subset of individuals ranging from the age of 23 to 89. So pretty broad range. Most of these individuals were not training. And what we saw was about 2 pounds lean mass increase and 1% drop in body fat now for within how long? In three months.

Wow.

Yes. When a bodybuilder or somebody who's a fitness enthusiast reads those numbers, it's pretty irrelevant. You know, two pounds of lean mass increase, that's nothing. But when you account for the fact that most of These people were not training. That becomes very relevant and some of the more intimate results detail that I can share with you. People who train, who have good healthy habits already in place, when they do follow statin. And you know, if your diet, if your diet is dialed in, you're eating adequate protein, you need that to build muscle, you're eating adequate protein. And training men will usually gain 5 to 15 ish pounds of muscle. Again, disclaimer. There's a lot of variability from individual to individual. So I'm giving you anecdotal information from a lot of my personal experience. My whole family's done it now. You know, my brother's done it.

Yeah. Your brother was the one that first got me interested because he's a very tall and lean young man and he probably had a lot of trouble gaining muscles. And then he said he gained, I forgot how many pounds.

I think he's gained 25 pounds of muscle.

Wow.

Yeah. And he's six, four. And you're right, he's like in the OG medical language, he would be like a very ectomorph type of individual.

Right.

So he's a hard gainer. And with his health journey, he couldn't gain. He was a hyper responder, I would say. Yeah, he responded very well. A lot of things got dialed in for him.

And he said even his mental cognition was enhanced.

Yes. And that leads me to. Thank you for bringing that up. I've mentioned some of the key indicators, key indications, muscle gain, fat loss. Right. Some of the other things that it's doing. One, the epigenetic age improvement, it can do that quite significantly. We saw about 12 years in the older population. Epigenetic age improvement. And I'll give a disclaimer on that too. Right. We used a true, true age, true diagnostics, true age test. It's a little bit wild, Wild west right now when it comes to biological age testing, as you're familiar, the algorithms are changing, so we don't know that's the test we studied, but I believe the algorithm on that has changed. So we are definitely doing research, investigating and potentially partnering up with a company where we can dial in the process of measuring that again.

Is it Generation Lab?

Potentially.

Okay, wonderful.

Potentially, yes. But we're looking at a handful. But they're in there.

Yes, I can say that.

So the cognitive one you brought up, that's a benefit that I don't feel. The company doesn't feel comfortable that you don't want to promise that to people because you don't want people walking in with an expectation that they're going to get a cognitive boost because it's not a direct benefit of Follistatin. Full statin doesn't give you a cognitive boost, but myostatin activin, these two proteins, when they get lowered, they can sometimes have that impact because these myostatin and activin are also involved in a lot of the inflammatory pathways. So depending on who you are and where you are in your health journey. Right. Follistatin can potentially decrease inflammation in the brain, inflammation in the body, and if you have inflammation in the brain, it decreases it. And all of a sudden there's a lot of people that have reported that to us, but until we like study it in a very scientific fashion, log it, we can't really promise it. Right. So they're, they're the. My favorite subset of benefits is actually these unique kind of compounded effects that you get.

So what is the percentage of people who actually experience cognitive improvement?

We don't have that number. You know, that's what I'm saying. We haven't done a study where we measure that, but a lot of people in my vicinity and in the company's vicinity, friends, and some clients and investors that are close to us have reported that.

But the most universal benefit that's observed is muscle gain and fat loss.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

That itself is incredible selling point.

Yeah, yeah. You know, we're, we're living in this. I'm familiar with your work. You know, you're very much in the exact field that I'm in. And muscle is an undervalued piece of real estate that has, in longevity. And it's very, very critical. You know, my, my mother and father have both done the therapy. That's the really cool thing about Mini Circle too, is it's a thing where we all participate in it, Right. Our families. And that's, that's nice for, you know, a technology company for, for you to believe in the product that much. With my father, mother, you know, we can't make a claim for sarcopenia, but that's the reality of it. They're older and, you know, your muscle protein synthesis gets, you know, it starts going downhill. And Follistatin has helped both of my parents drastically in getting back in training and getting in better shape. You can't get out of a chair without adequate muscle.

Right, right. So they notice that they've gained strength. Not just muscle mass, but strength.

Yes, yes. I also personally noticed strength gain. My VO2 max actually went up, which also shouldn't really be directly correlated to fst. But because my recovery, my strength slightly went up, my pickleball performance went up, I was, my recovery got better. Because all that got better, I was able to output more. So just the compound benefit of it ended up resulting in my VO2 max.

And how long does it take usually for people to notice muscle gain and muscle maybe strength increase?

Yeah, really good question. I'm super happy you asked that because so it's a curve. So most, there are hyper responders and there are hyporesponders. Most people are neither. They land somewhere in between. People start noticing some effects for the therapy within two to six weeks. There are individuals that I have seen who notice it within days. And then there are other individual where two months go by and they barely start. They're like, oh, is there something different? So most people are in the average range which is two to six weeks. So it just depends on the individual. But after six, eight week period, you can notice your improvements becoming increments that are noticeable to you. That does lead me to an important point. So there are a lot of people that want to do the therapy, some that have done the therapy that don't do anything about their health. They're doing it because it's like the new craze and it's a, it's a new thing. They're interested. It's in the longevity community. Brian Johnson did it, he put, you know, he talked about it a lot. So individuals who don't do anything about their health, they sometimes it's still benefiting them, but it's harder to gauge it if you are exercising consistently. Even if you're not keeping an exercise journal. You have subconscious benchmarks in your mind on what size dumbbell you reach, what weight dumbbell you reach for, for specific exercise, how many reps do you do, what is your recovery between sets? When do you recover for your next workout? So when an individual like that does the therapy, they typically tend to just respond better because it's not just the benefits are more pronounced, but the perception of the benefits can be optimized. So you receive it better because you feel the needle moving forward, you get stronger, you get, you notice it more. Right.

You have things to gauge on.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah. And the, once they notice the benefit, does that continue? Like they continue this enhanced muscle growth and strength gain throughout, like for a year? I think my understanding is the benefit will last generally for a year.

Yes.

Is this continuous process?

Yeah. Again, man, you ask really good questions. I do have to give you. You're Asking the perfect questions in the perfect.

I'm asking for everybody.

No, I, no, this is all the relevant information people need to understand. So the onset we talked about, which is, let's call it two to six weeks, eight weeks, you know, that ballpark, it looks like a bell curve, like an upside down U the whole year. So like onsets, then you're spending some time in the peak period and it slowly starts to wear off. And by the one year mark, and these are averages, right. By one year mark, it's worn off. So three to six months into your therapy, you're noticing the improvements. One interesting pattern that I have observed talking to now, probably a few hundred people that have done the therapy is the brain gets very used to, of being on Follistatin, really, because people forget after being on it for six months how they were six months ago, but because they got used to, of noticing these larger incremental changes after. And when the changes become smaller and smaller, some of that could be due to your genetic potential based on your frame. Right. Like this is not an anabolic steroid where you're just going to keep putting on more muscle. So when the changes get smaller and smaller, the benefit increments get smaller. A lot of times people think it's worn off, but it hasn't worn off. It's still working. So I would say onset, peak and then offset. That's what the year looks like. I think naturally you're going to ask what happens after a year.

Yes.

Right. So it's a, it's an interesting question and a little bit complicated, but I'll try to break it down in a very digestible fashion. A good metaphor I like to use is it's like topping off the gas in a car and how much you drive the car is going to determine. It's a very basic metaphor, how long it's going to last. Right. So this is doing full stat is like kind of topping off your tank. Right.

Okay.

So your lifestyle does play a lot of role in what benefits you're going to keep, what you're not going to keep. What happens during that year is full statin kind of acts. It's a little bit of a cheat code because you can get away with working out less and putting on equal or more amount of muscle. When it does wear off, you do keep your gains. It's not like if you, if your age went backwards, your epigenetic age got improved. It's not a hard, hard off that all of a sudden your body gets a signal. No, no, you're going backward, you're moving forward, you're aging now overnight. That's not what's happening.

Right.

Your lifestyle will determine that. Another key thing to keep in mind, these positive. It's a net positive benefit that an individual will usually get in a year that can pay you off for remainder of your life. But most people, most of our clientele typically wants to end up repeating it every year.

Yeah. Why couldn't you make this treatment last longer? Is there a way to make it last longer?

We have some projects where that is something we are studying. But frankly, our whole safety profile pitch kind of revolves around at the moment around it being a transient and temporary therapy. You know, viral vectors and crispr. That's a permanent change forever. This does not modify your DNA. Your DNA. It does not modify it. So that's kind of the highlight of this therapy that you can pulse it. Right. You can take it if you like it, you can repeat it. If you don't want to repeat it, it's out of your body.

What's the reason it wears off? Do the plasmid.

The body. The body silences it.

Oh, yeah.

The body just slowly silences it. Yes.

Do you lose those plasmids?

Yeah, it's gone.

Okay. Yes, I see.

Yeah. Actually, you know, part of our technology is how to get it to even work for a year. So the body has a lot of natural mechanisms for, you know, just turning things off.

Yeah.

So we've just gotten into a point where it's effective.

Yeah. I forgot to ask for the audience. What is even a plasmid? Like, what is it?

Yeah. A plasmid is a circular DNA molecule. Plasmids do exist in nature. They A lot of times that's how organisms communicate. So there's something inspired from what is existing in nature. It's very simple. It's just a circular DNA molecule.

And where did you guys obtain your plasmids?

We developed it.

Okay.

Yes.

Did they come from a bacteria?

Yes. Yes. The manufacturing process is pretty complex and a lot of parties are involved on how it's put together.

And is it completely benign that genetic material, except for the little piece that.

You inserted, should be.

Yes. I see.

Yes.

Okay. So is it. I know CRISPR is very involved, as you mentioned, and very expensive. How involved is the treatment using this plasmid technology?

Very non invasive. It's like peptide injection. It's not FDA approved. That's important for people to know.

Is it approved in any other countries?

You can get it in roton and we're working in Mexico and that's Honduras. Yes, Rotan, Honduras. Correct. We're working pretty diligently on getting it activated in Mexico. We're almost there and we have some more steps to take.

So that means the government is approving the therapy?

Yes, we're working towards that and we're getting closer and closer and there's a few other countries that I think I'm not at liberty to disclose until we get to a certain stage. But yeah, our intention is, you know, ultimately we want to work with the FDA and have this be available to the whole world because at the moment it's $25,000. And we are. Mini Circle is a very bold, innovative company and it is not very capital or money oriented company. We don't want to make. We want to make money so we can make this available to people. And our next big break is as soon as it can become available to more people, that's when the price can drop. Right. So because it's a very niche kind of market right now and it's taking place in a medical tourism setting. Right. Because most of the elite executives and individuals don't, don't want to wait. So they're like, okay, I'll go somewhere else and do it. So that's how I was existing right now. But you asked about how involved in it. It's a simple injection that takes a minute and you stay at the clinic for about 30 minutes after we've had 500 treatments now. Over 500, and we can claim that there's zero adverse events.

That's wonderful.

Which is huge for us.

Yeah, yeah. So for people who want to know a little bit more about gene therapy, I don't know if you watched the Unnatural Selection, that's a documentary on gene therapy and that's, I assume that's a traditional method, the CRISPR method method. They were treating a muscular dystrophy and one, it was the eye condition. And the treatment was $750,000. And I remember this one guy with muscular dystrophy, he got the money together, got the treatment, saw no improvement and had a ton of side effects. Headache, nausea. Yeah. So he was not doing well. But that's $750,000 down the drain. So just. Just to give people perspective.

Yeah, yeah. And typically with both of them, with the AAV and crispr, AV is a bit cheaper than crispr. It's a lot more involved. You know, you're at the clinic, there can be immune system compromise. Right. So with this, it is, it is a lot more accessible and we, we are very wanting to support people if we can help them. So we, we participate. We have some case studies on muscular dystrophy patients. I don't know how much I can talk about the results and how much detail I can speak, but the results have been very positive, you know, very, very positive, very promising. There's some other details around results that we want to get to the bottom of on the efficacy for MD for muscular dystrophy patients and how long it's lasting. There's more research to be done, but thus far on our side, the feedback has been very good. So that's the cool thing with this is like we're talking about folletin, but ultimately that's one of our products. You know, that's their launch product for obvious reasons, because it was, it was well known, but it had a very false time. We didn't talk about that. Folletin has a very short half life. Why would somebody pay $25,000 to do folletin gene therapy when you can buy it on a website or get it, you know. Right, right.

I was going to ask you that.

Yes, the answer to that is that Falstatten has a short half life of about 45 minutes. 45 minutes, maybe an hour and a half, depending on the individual. So that means, you know, to get the full benefits from it, the epigenetic age improvement muscle, all the benefits we talked about kind of have to have a consistent level of it. So you're literally looking at becoming a human pincushion, injecting six times a day, whatever it is, ten times a day to maintain. And for, you know, for a scientist, like, I'm at like the edge in biohacking. I know I'm very comfortable with peptides injectables, and I think you are too, you're a doctor. But it's not really feasible to do that many injections in a day. So, yeah, one could claim that doing FST injection, you know, just not the gene therapy, but just direct folletin 3, 4, 4, right before a workout. Okay, you can get benefits for your workout. But that's what made it very appealing because it was a great compound on paper and people were looking for it and very interested in it. And for scientists and for studies on mice or humans, it was great because you can attach a pump, you can inject the mouse all, all day. Right. And. But for people, it was not accessible because it didn't make sense. So that's the problem that we solved with this technology.

But also there are side effects. I tried follow statin injections and that created a huge like induration, like this hard, like, like a ball on my muscle, my skin. So that took months to disappear. I was like, I can't take this. Yeah. And I had other patients have similar results. So significant side effects.

Yes. And I don't think I've talked about this in public yet, but for some of my other ventures and projects I've been involved in on the peptide side, I have very good production, manufacturing and quality control with multiple labs testing the product. Interestingly, for Falstaff FST344, it's one that misses the mark many times in quality. And I'm talking about folletin that's being sold on peptide websites. Right?

Yeah.

And what you. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but you are correct. That is something that I. Multiple people have reported to me. I myself also experienced it when I tried it. I think it's very acidic and it's almost like a lot of some people respond like that to ghkcu. It's like a local effect that lasts one to two days. It's an irritant, so it's not the most convenient. So that's where mini circles gene therapy really solve the problem because you're taking one shot and you're now using your body's making more secreting more.

Yeah. Interesting. And you took it yourself. Of course. Right. What did you notice?

Because I'm a pickleball enthusiast, you know, one of my top results, I prefer to play pickleball than go to the gym, but I have to create a balance. Can't do all cardio. So after doing Follistatin, one of my favorite results was that I could maintain my muscle mass without going to the gym so frequently. So maybe not the best use of Follastatin, but that's what I'm desiring in life and it did that for me. Right. I did also notice reduction in inflammation generally because I have had a lot of surgeries and injuries. I can feel the scar tissue like tight when my inflammation is high. So post Follistatin it was. It didn't eliminate it entirely and it didn't help all the time. But I would notice that after Follistatin I started have having better windows or bigger windows of reduced inflammation. My sleep at times got better. With Follistatin I didn't necessarily get any pain relief. Some people have reported on a certain injury that they did the gene. They did false statin and they. The pain went away. A lot of people actually have reported that. We haven't tracked it because we didn't study it. I didn't get that benefit, but those are some. My. As I already said, my recovery went up from working out. I did get stronger. I don't know if I can attribute this officially to Falstatin, but my hand eye coordination improved in pickleball. So I do think it's most likely Follistatin. But I do do a lot of things and I want to be transparent. I think it's a high likelihood. It is that because just my muscles started functioning better and I had a little bit more strength, so things improved.

I see.

Yeah.

What about from these 500 people that have gotten the therapy? What are the other kinds of reports that you've seen that may be surprising to you?

The cognitive boost. That's surprising and pretty unique. Mostly, I think all the benefits we talked about, that covers a lot of them. There are some fun stories. One, he'd be okay with me mentioning his name. He talks about us publicly. Kenneth Scott, one of our favorite. The oldest biohacker. He claims he's 80 some years old. He's in incredible health. And after doing Folletin, he was, he was very happy because he said he could dance with his wife. You know, so it's, it's these, I think, benefits. We covered most of them, but they're just fun, unique experiences people had. There was one person, you know, who was in a muscular dystrophy case, who was in a lot of pain and couldn't do chores back to back. Like had to take a nap between washing dishes and taking a shower after doing fst, was able to do back to back and was very happy that he could do that. So, you know, I think it's very worth highlighting that people are very unique individuals with unique biochemistries and very different health journeys. So, yes, we can talk about the key indicators and some of the core benefits, but the experience can look very different from individual to individual.

Yeah. And what other gene therapy, as far as genes, are you targeting?

Yes. So I'll talk about two. I believe we can. Now, we're saying officially we have about 100 new plasmids we have designed. I can't talk about all of them. I will just select two of them. We are allocating a lot of resources towards Clotho. Next. You're familiar with Clotho? Well, yeah. For your. For the listeners, Follistatin is a big deal that Happened, you know, for people. Clotho in the longevity and biohacking community is a massive deal. It's for cognitive boost. It can also potentially help with kidneys, potentially even with heart. But you want to mainly characterize it as a cognitive enhancer, a cognitive booster, potentially. Some of the mice studies even showed a boost in IQ points.

Wow. So this is also a naturally occurring.

Yes. And Clotho is quite unique. There's different types of Clotho genes that people have or different levels.

So is this a peptide?

It's a protein.

Okay.

It's a protein. So just a little bit past the peptide. Yeah, it's naturally occurring in individuals, and it varies quite a bit. I don't know the numbers off top of my head, but there are people who have very little Clotho baseline Clotho. Other individuals who have a lot of Clotho, what they saw in mice was the mice that had more Clotho lived longer. So I'm personally.

And they're also smarter.

Yes. I'm personally over the moon with Clotho and the amount of interest we're having globally on people. It's not ready yet. We're starting our trials by the end of this year in Bahamas. So it's not ready. We're close, but people are. People are breaking down the doors more than that.

Have you tried it?

I cannot say.

When are you guys ready?

You know, that's the question. That's the big question in the room. Things take longer than we think. Always. I see one year, two years, you know, I see. Yes.

People have to wait that long.

Yes.

And there's a third one.

Oh, the third one that I'm also really excited about, especially for the males, is LH plasmid, luteinizing hormone plasmid. So you know all of this. But for your listeners, luteinizing hormone. So follistat, follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, are basically in a chain with testosterone, Right. So if you up the lh, your testosterone gets elevated. So most of the executives right now, I know anybody who's an entrepreneur and really is motivated and driven and also wants to take care of their health and have good health, good energy in their 40s. Pretty much everybody I know is on some level of trt, testosterone replacement therapy. And it actually literally becomes a pain in the ass because you have to take half a CC of injection every few days. Right. And the scar tissue starts to build up. It's not the most convenient. You get used to it. But the LH plasmid is. We're developing it I don't know where the status is or how long it will take. But that is a very exciting therapy because you can essentially take one shot and same same way as Falstatin now you will naturally produce more testosterone. Even if that one can last three months or six months, it's better than repeating it or taking a shot twice a week or once a week.

Yeah. Incredible. That's why I was calling this revolutionary, you know, treatment. This is changing the game.

Yes.

The entire industry. The hormone replacement industry.

Yes, exactly. We've mainly talked about the three therapies. We've talked about is more in the optimization realm. And frankly that's kind of our sequence on how we're executing in the company because these are optimized. People in the optimization realm are very interested in it. But there's a whole bunch of interventional, you know, solving problems, you know, unique problems. As we build our more, more plasmids and build our resources, increase our revenue, we will be investing more and more in unique subset of problems, even if they don't mean a lot of money or not a lot of interest. We are excited to do that.

Yeah, very exciting. Are there other companies who are doing similar things as far as plasmid technology?

Yeah. As far as my understanding, Mini Circle is the main game in town for plasmids at the moment.

So is it pretty difficult to develop the technology? That's why you guys, you guys are the only one.

Yeah, we've been at it for almost six years now and the company is more than 20 people now. The core group of the company has worked around the clock for years and hopefully things in this space would get easier. And we want to see more and more. We believe in plasmids very much and we are also not very competitive. We want to see the industry grow and people benefit from it. It will just help the general cause. So Mini Circle is the main company right now, the only company doing this.

Yeah.

Yes. If something changed in the last few months, you know, don't hold me accountable.

Yeah, it's very exciting. So you guys will go into diseases after the initial, more wellness oriented therapies?

Yeah, we already are. I'm just not at liberty to discuss some, you know, there's some agreements and NDAs in place on some things, but yes, we already are beginning that process.

And actually a lot of celebrities have used the therapy, right? Yeah.

At this point, every, most of the biohackers and a lot of celebrities have used the gene therapy. I can name some. The ones that have Spoken about it publicly. Brian Johnson, big one. You know, we were in his documentary and Don't Die on Netflix. Dave Asprey loves us. He had some pretty incredible results recently. Spoke with Ben. Ben Greenfield.

Yes.

He had some extraordinary results with the therapy. So, yeah, these were actually the three biggest biohackers. Yeah. But, you know, Ben inspired me, actually. I recently told him the story about my health journey.

Yeah.

And he was a pivotal, like my health role model on how he spread the information. So I looked up to him a lot and he was very impactful on my personal journey. So I love how things have come full circle now, you know, now you're enhancing his. Yeah, now. Now Ben and I are talking about potentially doing a pickleball biohacking retreat in Costa rica with Tyson McGuffin. So exciting. Yeah.

I need to learn how to play pickleball so I can come to your retreat.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's phenomenal. So where can people get the therapy at this point?

Yeah. The easiest thing to do is just visit our site, Minicircle IO and just fill out the form that you're interesting. Somebody will reach out to you immediately or very quickly. And there will be a discovery call where you'll ask your questions, learn more about the therapy. In that call, there will be some communication on the ideal location for you. Based on that, you'll get connected. So we're active in Bahamas right now as well. I forgot to mention that location.

Yeah. And of course, I would love to provide that therapy in some form. Right now it's not available in the U.S. right.

Yes.

But there are ways to provide the therapy and. Yeah. It sounds really.

Yeah.

You know, as a concierge, you do a lot of concierge work. We work with a lot of high level individuals and for doctors like you who are traveling. Right. And going to different spaces, as long as it's done in a jurisdiction where it is allowed, then it's good. So I'm excited for you to also enter.

Yeah. Offer this to people. So exciting. And. Yeah. Thank you for doing all the work. Of course. This is a team that's making this happen.

Yeah. I can't take any. Any credit for this. Big shout out to Mack Davis and Walter Patterson. Absolutely phenomenal. Walter's our president, co founder, and he's an absolute genius.

I see.

Yeah. So we, we. I'm actually very lucky to be blessed with such an amazing team, from operations to science, and a great business team. So I'm taking no credit. You know, I'm just doing a little part.

Yeah. I'm super excited to watch the growth of your company and to see more products coming and helping people with all these different needs. It's just incredible. So I'm so happy that you are able to come here and explain to people and really educate and expand their horizon as far as what's possible. So thank you for being here. This has been a fabulous discussion.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Again, thank you.

Jay thank you. Joy.

Thank you for listening to this episode.

Hope you enjoy the content and if so, please rate and follow this podcast. To reach me, you can contact Uplift Longevity center, that is Uplift with a Y. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, Joy Kong MD see you next time.