I started writing Reprogramming Life in the middle of the pandemic. It is not the book that I set out to write. I had been planning, for almost a decade, to write a popular science book on breakthroughs in biotechnology and their impact on how we view aging. But I never seemed to have the time with all the things going on in my life. But my life slowed down during the pandemic as it did I suppose for most people. Having more time, I would go for many walks along the lagoons that run through Alameda island where I lived at the time. During the day, I was writing a review article on aging and in the evenings, after my walk, I would sit down to write the book. As I wrote, many of the thoughts about my life that I pondered on my walks came back to me. What poured out of me was not just the science but the why of the science and how the events in my life starting from my early childhood had impacted how I viewed biology and my work on aging. So, in addition to the science, there is a lot of reflection, history, and philosophy in the book.

My original working title was, “Biology is Plastic,” but one of my editors thought “plastic” had too many negative connotations of being “fake”–kind of like how “plastic,” life in Los Angeles can be. Eventually I came up with Reprogramming Life. The central idea that runs through the book is the malleability of biology as we see it in nature and in the laboratory. Then I had a “Holy crap” moment when I realized that we see this plasticity in sexual development as well as aging. So I began to weave the part of my life as a trans woman into the book. The third subject that I couldn’t ignore, if I was going to bring my life story into the book, was an extraordinary series of experiences in the Fall of 1980 that changed the way I saw reality itself. So I began another section on the plasticity of consciousness. That part was eventually ejected from the first book and will become the sequel, Reprogramming Consciousness. This substack however will cover all three subjects: aging, gender, and consciousness.

Thus, Reprogramming Life is a combined memoir and popular science book covering my three decades in biotechnology and regenerative medicine, from the start of the recombinant DNA revolution to the astounding progress we are currently witnessing in longevity biotech. I demonstrate how aging and gender, once seen as immutable, can be reprogrammed. I combine the science with the story of my struggle, as a trans woman in science, to find myself and live my most authentic life. In the sequel, I discuss, through the same biographical lens, how malleable consciousness is, including my interpretation of a spontaneous transformative experience and other unusual experiences I have had including UAP encounters. Since I have begun talking openly about my experiences, I have learned that such events are not that uncommon even among scientists.

About the Author

Here is a little bit more about me. I am a woman, parent, scientist, author, and entrepreneur. I have a PhD in molecular and cell biology from USC and did my postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. My advisor was Matthew Meselson, who along with Franklin Stahl, is known for performing the most elegant experiment in molecular biology (which I describe in the book). The beginning of my career coincided with the start of the biotech industry with the founding of Genentech. Arthur Riggs was on my thesis committee at USC. He and Keiichi Itakura made history by engineering the first biologic drug–human insulin manufactured in bacteria. A fellow graduate student became a millionaire overnight when Genentech went public. I wasn’t perhaps as fortunate financially but the science kept me going.

During my career, I have had the opportunity to work in a number of diverse fields, witnessing the birth of recombinant DNA, monoclonal antibodies, gene therapy, regenerative medicine and the current longevity biotechnology boom. From my first experiment in my mom’s kitchen at 3 years of age to my current work on cellular reprogramming and regenerative exosomes, I have had a lifelong passion for science and the study of aging.

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Gender

I feel that I have a unique perspective to offer as a trans woman scientist and baby boomer. Over the past decades I have witnessed incredible change in both in technology and society. And I have lived through decades of invisibility as a trans woman in a world of rigid sex roles and stereotypes. I struggled to fit in, find happiness, build a family and a career while keeping my true self a secret. Now from the perspective of a trans woman scientist that is out to the world, I can look back at my life and career and begin to weave the various threads together into a beautiful and meaningful tapestry.

Many dichotomies run through this tapestry. There is the mortal and immortal nature of life, young versus old, male versus female, science versus mysticism and left versus right brain consciousness. Thus, my writing covers topics as diverse as aging, gender, and consciousness. Yet they are tied together by the concept of plasticity (there is that word again). I propose that we can, therefore, take control of our biological destiny in the quest for longer, healthier and more authentic lives.

Aging

Over the decades, my excitement and optimism for the future has not wavered. The remarkable progress I have witnessed in biotechnology and the science of aging has led to some spectacular discoveries that were inconceivable in my early career. Among the most exciting is the ability to reverse both the age and developmental identity of cells using cellular reprogramming. Remarkably, the addition of only four factors are needed to induce these fundamental changes. A variation of reprogramming called partial reprogramming aims to reverse just the age of cells, tissues and whole organisms while maintaining identity. These advances have the potential to ensure longer healthier lives for everyone.

There has always been pushback when new ideas and new technologies emerge. The idea of extending healthy lifespan using advances in biotechnology was pretty radical back when I was a graduate student in the late 1970s. It is finally gaining some traction but we have a long way to go. I wonder sometimes why more people, especially boomers, aren’t marching in the streets demanding more research and development that could eliminate decades of declining health due to aging.

Trans rights was also a radical concept when I was starting my career. I have witnessed considerable progress since then. But we are currently seeing tremendous pushback now that trans people are more visible and gender affirming healthcare is more readily accessible. Nevertheless, I believe that if we take the long view, the arc of history will continue to move toward greater freedom for trans people to live as their authentic selves. As we cross the first quarter of the 21st century, I am optimistic that the trend toward greater personal freedom and body autonomy will continue for both trans and cis people.

Consciousness

Here you will also find some of my thoughts and speculations on consciousness, UFOs/UAPs, and other paranormal experiences. As a scientist, I have always been rather skeptical of anything that seemed to defy scientific explanation, yet I have had many extraordinary experiences including encounters with the UFO/UAP phenomenon. I am learning to live with the contradiction.

Recently more scientists have been willing to consider what we have come to know as “the phenomenon,” as something worthy of study. A great example is immunologist, Garry Nolan, who is a professor at Stanford University and biotechnology entrepreneur. He considers it data. Yes the data is anomalous but we shouldn’t ignore it. I feel the same way about my own experiences. I don’t discount them but consider them as data. I think it’s important to share these experiences and compare them with others. There are some remarkable shared experiences! But we wouldn’t know this if we kept these experiences to ourselves.

My experiences have impacted my life deeply and affect the way I view the world. They continue to remind me to keep an open mind. As Carl Sagan once wrote, “mere critical thinking without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed.”¹ We can use our right hemisphere to gain insights and intuition about the world but it’s important to come back and use the left hemisphere to subject your data to hard-nosed scientific scrutiny. Sagan reminds us that both hemispheres are needed; “the path to the future is through the corpus callosum.”¹

I hope that others benefit from the perspectives that I share. Let me know what areas interest you the most. I welcome your feedback!

Dana

Sagan, C: The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. New York, NY: Ballantine Books; 1977.

There is a familiar optical illusion that portrays an image of a young or old woman depending on how you look at it. This young/old image can be used to illustrate the concept that both exist simultaneously. The young body is retained as information within each cell of the body as we age. The fact that this “blueprint for youth” is not lost may be the secret to reprogramming old bodies to be young again.

Connecting the Dots

When I was a young child and still learning about the world, there was a lot I did not understand about time and aging. I knew there were other children like me that I met in school and on the playground. I knew there were older children like my brother and adults who were even older like my parents. And I had a vague idea that one day in the far future I would grow up to be an adult. But then there were old people. They seemed like a different species altogether.

Occasionally my mom would take me with her to visit her friend Margaret. She was old. I didn’t know how old, probably in her late 70s or early 80s, and she was very different from the other adults. She moved more slowly and had a hard time getting up from her chair. She had a full head of thick white hair and pale loose skin that hung off her large frame. Her voice was shrill and thin, and she always seemed to be in a bad mood, complaining about one thing or another. Her home was filled with things from the distant past, like bookcases filled with ancient dusty issues of National Geographic. To my young mind, she was always old. Maybe she came into the world that way. It was hard to imagine another adult like my mom could one day become old like Margaret. It was inconceivable that I would one day grow old and frail like she was.

If I could go back in time to a world that existed at the turn of the 20th century before television, radio, jet airplanes, and cars were common-place, I could meet Margaret as a young woman and perhaps make the connection real in my mind. I could then know the old and the young woman as the same person. At some point, I made the connection as all children do and realized that indeed children grow up to be adults who if they survive long enough will in turn grow older and older until they become very old, like Margaret. Inside every old person is the memory of the young person they once were and in every young person there is an old person waiting patiently to come into being.

Aging is associated with many chronic diseases and disabilities that lead to becoming increasingly frail, forgetful, confused, and in need of more and more assistance and medical care. And then one day we die. At least that is the way it has always been. For much of my early childhood, I was happier not to connect the dots, to live with the disconnect, and just see people for who they were in the moment instead of who they once were or who they might become. I believe that we all understand this connection at different levels as we ourselves age. For many young people aging remains intellectually understood but not quite grasped at a visceral level. That is, until the signs of aging start to creep into their daily lives. For me, it was visceral and real from a young age, and I chose my career in biology as a result.

Plasticity of Aging in Nature

Life has both an immortal and mortal aspect. All life on earth evolved from a single common unicellular ancestor. The first life forms were simple single-celled organisms. They are essentially immortal with the capacity for unlimited cell division. When life evolved into multicellular organisms, it split into two distinct cell types: the reproductive or germline cells (egg and sperm) and body cells (the soma or somatic cells). The cells of the body are destined to age and die but the germline is essentially immortal. It can go on replicating indefinitely as long as the environmental conditions for life are present. The germline also extends backward in time via a continuous unbroken chain of cell division to the dawn of life on our planet.

There is an incredibly wide spectrum of lifespans that are seen in nature ranging from the short hours of the life of an adult mayfly to the centuries long life of the Greenland shark. But there are organisms that appear to be ageless. Many simpler life forms like sponges, hydra, flatworms, and starfish, which are closer, evolutionarily to the immortal origin of life, do not seem to age at all.

My graduate school professor, Caleb “Tuck” Finch, coined the term, “negligible senescence,” to describe how in some species, there is almost no change in the probability of dying with time (1). These organisms maintain an ability to continually regenerate their bodies and thus do not experience aging. There is also less of a distinction between soma and germline. Immortal animals like flatworms and hydra have powerful stem cells, distributed throughout the body, that can regenerate lost body parts. Certain species of planaria, for example, can be cut into as many as 279 pieces and each fragment will regenerate a complete new flatworm. However, as life became more complex, the capacity for tissues and organs to regenerate declined.

More complex life like fish, amphibians, and reptiles retain some regenerative capacity but eventually undergo aging. The axolotl, an amphibian species, can regenerate limbs, heart, eyes and even parts of its brain. Birds and mammals including humans have the least regenerative ability. In this case, regenerative capacity is confined to the very early stages of development before the shift from embryo to fetus (8 weeks in humans). While I was at AgeX Therapeutics in the late 2010’s working with Michael West, we developed the somatic restriction hypothesis, which states that lifespan is largely determined by the degree to which regenerative capacity is lost at various stages of development (2).

When I was in graduate school the prevailing theories of aging were based on wear and tear and the accumulation of environmental damage. However, the wide variation in aging seen in nature and the fact that we observe ageless organisms argues against the wear and tear theory of aging and for a genetically programmed cause. The concept of genetically programmed aging is good news because if it is programmed then perhaps we can reprogram it. In living things, the program or blueprint comes from within. The instruction set or blueprints for making a young healthy body is contained within the genome of each cell. This information is not bound by time in the same way the body is.

The germline is immortal because it maintains the information to make new young bodies from one generation to the next. Our bodies age because, unlike the germline, the cells that make up our bodies gradually lose the ability to read the blueprint for youth. As in the optical illusion the young and old woman are the same; they are separated only by the program that reads the genome. Another term for how the DNA program is read is epigenetics. If DNA is the sheet music, epigenetics is the conductor that interprets how the song is played. The difference between old and young lies in the epigenetics.

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Programming and Reprogramming Aging

Astonishingly as it may seem, a revolutionary advance in biotechnology called cellular reprogramming–also called epigenetic reprogramming–is capable of turning back the aging clock, thus making old cells young again. As we all went through the developmental stages from fertilized egg to embryo to fetus to newborn, the epigenetic conductor read the genome to produce all the diverse cells, tissues and organs that make us who we are.

As we age from youth to adulthood to old age the epigenetics change–we lose the program for youth. Some changes are random but many follow a predictable programmed pattern. We can read the pattern as an epigenetic clock that predicts how well your epigenetic age matches your chronological age. One of the most commonly used epigenetic clocks was developed by Steve Horvath, co-founder of the Clock Foundation. Epigenetic and other aging clocks are valuable tools for the development and testing of new aging interventions, especially epigenetic reprogramming therapies.

We know from the frog cloning experiments of John Gurdon in the 1950’s and the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996, that adult body cells retain the information to make a complete new young body. Prior to cloning, that ability was thought to be confined to the germline. Cloning involves injecting the nucleus of a cell from an adult into an unfertilized egg cell and stimulating the egg to begin development. Many mammals like mice, cattle, dogs, and monkeys have been cloned. Human embryonic stem cells have been generated using human cloning but reproductive cloning from human cells has not been achieved. Cloning demonstrates that, in a sense, our cells retain regenerative plasticity that is seen in simple life forms like sponges, hydra and flatworms with their ubiquitous presence of regenerative stem cells. In mammals, this regenerative capacity is latent but cloning suggest that under the right conditions it could be reawakened.

Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel prize in 2012 for the discovery of cellular reprogramming. Cloning had shown that something in the egg had a remarkable effect on the nucleus of an established adult cell, reverting its identity back to the embryonic state. Yamanaka’s lab figured out which factors in the egg were capable of reprogramming an adult cell nucleus such that it was now capable of developing into a new young “cloned” body. When these four factors (called OKSM or simply Yamanaka factors) are introduced into a donor’s skin cells, the cells undergo the same remarkable embryonic regression. They become what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which, like cells of the early embryo are immortal and capable of becoming any cell in the body.

Thus, iPSCs are a boon to stem cell research and regenerative medicine because an endless supply of new young replacement cells can be generated from a patient’s skin or blood cells. Many iPSC-based cell therapies are currently being tested in clinical trials to treat a variety of age-related chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, blindness, Parkinson’s, diabetic foot ulcers and various blood disorders. The risk of immune rejection is minimal because the resulting cells are genetically matched to the patient.

The Yamanaka factors turn back the developmental process and thus alter the identity of a cell from an adult to embryonic. While working with Michael West’s team at BioTime, we demonstrated that reprogramming also reverses the telomere aging clock, resetting it back to day one (3). However, when the Yamanaka factors are expressed in a whole organism, the result is organ toxicity and tumor formation. There is too much youth and the cells grow out of control. A major breakthrough in aging research was the discovery that a controlled application of the Yamanaka factors in a mouse could rejuvenate mouse organs and tissues and even extend the lifespan of mice that were engineered to mimic rapid human aging (4). The technique became known as “partial reprogramming,” because it reprograms the cell just enough to reverse aging without going too far and losing cellular identity.

Thus, like the woman in the optical illusion, the information of both a young and an old self is contained in the same person. In a young person, an old self exists as a potential future epigenetic state. For the old person, a young self exists as an epigenetic memory waiting to be unlocked. Partial reprogramming holds the key to unlocking the memory of youth and thus rejuvenating aging tissues, organs and perhaps whole bodies. Billions of dollars are being invested in partial reprogramming based biotechnology companies such as Altos, Turn, Life Biosciences, NewLimit, Calico, and Retro. And earlier this year Life Biosciences began a human clinical trial of its 3-factor partial reprogramming therapy to treat blindness. If they and others are successful, we may indeed find that the secret of the long sought after fountain of youth was actually inside us the whole time.

This article is excerpted in modified form from my forthcoming book, Reprogramming Life: Beyond the Limits of Aging, Gender, and Identity, and previously published in part on Medium.

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1. Finch CE: Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome, Paperback edn. London:University of Chicago Press; 1994.University of Chicago Press; 1994.

2. West MD, Sternberg H, Labat I, Janus J, Chapman KB, Malik NN, de Grey AD, Larocca D: Toward a unified theory of aging and regeneration. Regen Med 2019, 14(9):867–886.

3. Vaziri H, Chapman KB, Guigova A, Teichroeb J, Lacher MD, Sternberg H, Singec I, Briggs L, Wheeler J, Sampathkumar J et al: Spontaneous reversal of the developmental aging of normal human cells following transcriptional reprogramming. Regen Med 2010, 5(3):345–363.

4. Ocampo A, Reddy P, Martinez-Redondo P, Platero-Luengo A, Hatanaka F, Hishida T, Li M, Lam D, Kurita M, Beyret E et al: In Vivo Amelioration of Age-Associated Hallmarks by Partial Reprogramming. Cell 2016, 167(7):1719–1733 e1712.

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What do Aging, Gender, and Consciousness have in Common?

We tend to think of aging, gender, and consciousness as being immutable or at least very difficult to change. We believe we are destined to grow old and die. Many believe that the sex you were assigned at birth is just a biological fact and is fixed for life. Likewise, our concept of everyday consciousness is that it emerges from brain activity and that the constant flow of thought is difficult if not impossible to stop. But here we will take a different approach. Here we will learn that these things are flexible and therefore reprogrammable because life itself can be reprogrammed.

Here we explore how we can take control of how we age. We can take control of our biology and how we embody our true innate self, and thus live more authentically. Finally we don’t have to be stuck in one way of thinking, one way of operating our brain. The brain and consciousness are much more flexible and open to change if we want it. It is all about more freedom. Freedom to age gracefully, to stay healthy and fit beyond what was once thought possible. Freedom to align our bodies with who we are. And freedom to open our minds to new ways of thinking. Welcome to the limitless possibilities of Reprogramming Life.

About Reprogramming Life

The double meaning behind the title is that in the same way that science is learning to reprogram the age and developmental state of our cells, we can learn to reprogram our lives to live more authentically as who we really are. I will be writing about the latest breakthroughs in longevity biotechnology. Having started my career at the dawn of biotechnology with the advent of recombinant DNA, I have witnessed the growth of gene therapy, molecular evolution, immunotherapy, stem cell and regenerative medicine through to the current boom in longevity biotech and cellular reprogramming. From this long view, I will give my perspective on where we have been, where we may go in the future. and how will the technology affect humanity. Assuming we can one day reprogram old bodies to become young again, should we do it? And if we can extend human life, how far should we go? What would it mean to live forever?

As a trans woman scientist I will share how being trans has affected my life and career. I will give you my perspective on being trans, from growing up in the oppressive environment of mid-century America to finally transitioning in the late 2010’s after decades of living a double life. It was not an easy way to live. While I was trying to uncover the secrets of life, I kept my own secret deeply hidden. I will also look at breakthroughs in biotechnology that could one day provide more choices for trans women and men that wish to align their bodies to better match their innate identity. We will see how reprogramming in nature teaches us that sexual reproduction may be a fixed species imperative but that it that can play out in many varied and diverse ways at the level of the individual. Biology is malleable and biology loves diversity. It is how life adapts, grows, and evolves. I will also discuss advances in biotechnology like in vitro gametogenesis that could enable production of egg or sperm from reprogrammed skin cells. Thus, in the future, we may see a time where there is the option to align both embodiment and reproductive strategy with innate gender identity.

I also hope to provide a rare look at some of the forces that have influenced my personal life and the science I have worked on. The practice of science involves an often grueling amount of effort to collect data, at least it has in the past for molecular biologists like myself. The data is then examined rationally to deduce whether a hypothesis about how nature works is true or false. But few people ever ask where the hypothesis comes from. Often it is said to be a hunch or a guess about how things work. But then why are some scientists more successful than others? Is it just luck or could there be more at play here? My drive to study aging and possible pathways to increased healthy longevity originated with what some would call paranormal experiences. And many ideas that have led to successful discoveries for me have originated in dramatic altered states, sometimes dreams but also some spontaneous transformative experiences. Though most scientists do not discuss these types of experiences, I will talk openly about them here because I believe it is time to come out of the closet about the influence of non-ordinary states on scientific discovery.

The kind of community I am looking to build here

I hope to build a community here for those who are optimistic about the future. This will be a place to get a shot of optimism about where we may be going when it comes to living healthier and longer lives, enabling longevity technology not just for the lucky few but for everyone. It is also a place to discuss how to live more authentically. I will focus on the trans experience but I believe my experience can be helpful for anyone who wishes to live according to their innermost truth and calling. It will also be a place where I will discuss highly personal transformative experiences, whether that be UAP, NHI, spiritual awakening or other non-ordinary experiences and what impact that has had on my life path. And in the broader sense we will look at what the possibility of contact with UAP or NHI will mean for society. In a real sense, we are beginning to interact with NHI in the form of AI and we will look at the impact of this technology as well.

What to expect from me

I will be posting articles that cover the aging, gender, and consciousness topics on a regular basis. You can expect roughly one article per week. I will be sharing ideas that will be covered in depth in my forthcoming book, Reprogramming Life: Beyond the Limits of Aging, Gender, and Identity, which is scheduled for release in Fall of 2026. Watch this space for updates on pre-ordering and final publication date. Additionally, I will be writing articles on consciousness covering topics in a followup book tentatively titled, Reprogramming Consciousness, due out in 2027. I will keep you all up to date on any media events and scheduled appearances on other platforms. Most of the articles will be available for free subscribers. I also will have separate and extended articles and some special events like “ask me anything” sessions for paid subscribers.

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