Phase Labs is building electrophysiological technology to regrow organs and limbs inside the human body

military. Maybe you suffer from diabetes and you had to be amputated. There's no way you could regenerate that right now. You have to like rely on prosthetics. But prosthetics is is kind of [ __ ] Yeah. Honestly.

Um, and this happens if you look this happens not only with limbs but actually with all the rest of the organs of the body. So we're building that technology. That's kind of the the glimpse of it.

How much of this is like I mean this is pure sci-fi feels like is this informed by what is it the salamander that breaks the tail off and then they regrow it? Is this like Jurassic Park where you actually learn something from that or is there a different Didn't we We got Ompic from some crazy dragon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The Komodo dragon monster. Uh yeah. What what is the basically I want to know trace back for me the tech tree that got us to today. I imagine you're standing on the shoulders of giants. Is crisper relevant? Like what is relevant to allow you to do this? Because this sounds like pure sci-fi to me. Yeah.

So I I will start with that last line like the crisper line because I think that's that's extremely important. We are not doing genetic engineering.

um and and that has advantages from regulatory point of view but also like on the underlying R&D I actually and this might be controversial but I actually don't think that you can solve this problem with genetic engineering like finding one two three genes that you can basically correct the problem I don't think that's possible at all we are basically modifying the physiological signals directly in the body more specifically we are leveraging electrphysiological signals so a lot of people doesn't know but the same signals that rule your brain actually are all over your body.

Basically when you were born you were a single zygote and literally that that zygote self assembled yourself into a living human functioning being. So let's give it up for the zygot. Let's give it up for them. This is fantastic.

Uh so basically what we have discovered and this is bas this is work of the last 15 20 years is that these electrophysiological signals during the process of development encode information instructive information to to control morphagenesis which is the process of growth and form of of an organism.

Um so yeah definitely we are like on the shoulders of giants. That's that's a fact. Yeah. regrowing a hand. That seems like the final boss of this potentially. Uh what's the easiest thing to regrow?

Are you starting with like a fingernail and then you work your way up or do you go for the hand straight out and try to oneshot that? Like is there is there something that we already regrow that we can maybe maybe build on? Yeah. Hair. We know the hair loss market. Maybe you should pivot into just hair loss.

Seems to be a lot of money in that. That would be that that would be extremely profitable, honestly. Yeah. Yeah.

ju just just as a matter of fact I mean babies human babies are able to regrow the the tip of their of their fingers of their digits uh once like they are they are young yeah they that that already happens what happens is that like the human body lose this capacity throughout time throughout aging uh and now like regarding the question what what is the final b what is the final boss I actually think the kidney it's even anatomically speaking it's even more complex than than than the limp.

But the limp is right up there like this will like these two indications will be kind of in the next 10 15 years. These will are kind of long-term research programs. On the short term, we are focusing on indications that where we could basically move a lot faster in the next five years.

So for example, coronic bone healing, this happens to diabetic patients when they suffer from ulcers and it's actually the main cause of amputations worldwide. So, so we are basically tracking these initial problems first. What about even something like scar tissue?

Like a lot of people have like C-section scars or scars from anything. Is that is that relevant or like the same kind of biological process or is that a different fork of the tech tree? Yeah, actually it's it's pretty similar. It's it's based it's based on the same electrochemical signals in the regenerative process.

So if you look that are already in the market electric wound dressings that you actually can put in the skin and accelerate the wound process. Uh but this basically there are these are extremely limited to a stage two and a stage one uh injuries.

So for example if you have like an injury of five millimeters but once you start like involving like one two centimeters it starts to be incredibly more complex. You you touch muscle you touch bones. So that's that's that's a lot harder. Yeah.

What um what what's exciting about what's happening in the uh I saw some recent news around a genetically edited pig kidney that was transferred into a human and it sounds like it was somewhat effective. Is there anything that you you guys can learn?

uh just just immediately my my reaction to that is like I would rather have a you know regular human kidney that was generated just for me instead of a genetically edited pig kidney that gets sort of uh transferred uh transplanted in but what what are you learning from from that space or tracking?

Yeah, I I think I think those initiatives I mean any initiative that tries to to crack the problem it's it's worthwhile but I'm I'm I'm quite skeptical with with those approaches because there are a lot of questions regarding the immune system how much like what would be the rejection of a human body in these cases uh like the immunogenicity of the related process it's like a huge huge question mark uh and and I actually think that if we if we want to solve the regenerative problem not only like one organ But like actual regeneration, whole body regeneration like Deadpool or Wolverine for example, we we actually need to leverage the fundamental mechanisms that the body already uses.

So go there, understand what is the language, what is the code that the body uses for for morphagenesis and and and learn to modulate that code like more fundamentally. I think that's important. What's the user experience? I you've been mentioning like electro stimulation. Is this not a pill that I take? Yeah.

So there's there's a continuum of technology and this is important. So for the limb regeneration the the stimulation will be a lot more complex than just like electric currents.

Of course it's it's a it's an anatomical structure that it's a lot more complex but starting like with the chronic wound healing with the short-term um research program uh we are working uh with a with a medical device approach in mind. Why?

because medical devices are a lot easier to pass through the FDA do clinical trials on top of them. Once you start with biologics, they are extremely hard.

So we want to accelerate that process first and then I think that the ide the ideal version of this technology is kind of a combination product where you use these biohysical stimulation with light and ultrasound but also leverage kind of the molecular specificity of of proteins at the same time. Yeah.

uh if you're if you're successful as you sound like you're going to be, what is what is the craziest potential future that you could imagine? Are we are we, you know, regenerating entire uh versions of ourselves? I want extra arms. Make me like Doc O. Yeah. I I I want Yeah. from Spider-Man. I want six arms. Uh yeah.

What What's the craziest, you know, potential potentially skip leg day? Regrow your leg muscles. Can you imagine? John would love this. John would love this. Just massive quads without ever hitting the leg press. The world would change overnight. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Uh what like one one important Yeah.

I I think there are there are two two variants of like a really optimistic crazy future. The first one I think it's more like a cultural change.

We we have like this idea that uh steel that if you like use you are be able to edit yourself with maybe a a hand a robotic arm and you are kind of a blend of robotic human person like somehow you will be stronger.

Uh but but that I mean that's just a bias that we have because we have not been able to engineer biology like successfully as we wanted.

I I I would love like for humans to to to understand that biology could be as robust as any other thing and even start relating this technology to aging itself and and and of course there's still like a gap in which that that we we should answer that to what extent regenerating all the organs of your body would be related to aging and increasing longevity but but I think there's we have big reasons to believe that that it it will be high connected so basically expand like the the lifespan kind of people like 100 years more to be able to be more productive, have like healthier lives, change our our our societal construct of what it's a meaningful life would be amazing.

And then on the limit, it would be also awesome. It would be extremely awesome to be able to engineer like artificial biological networks in the same way that we are doing right now with uh artificial neural networks in