Listen to this episode of Longevity by Design on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Aging is more than disease—it’s the steady decline of function. In this episode of Longevity by Design, Dr. Gil Blander speaks with physicist-turned-biotech innovator Dr. Peter Fedichev about why resilience, not diseases, holds the key to longer lives.
Peter explains how his background in theoretical physics shaped his approach to biology and aging. He outlines why startups, not large institutions, are now leading innovation in longevity science. Drawing from physics, he describes aging as a series of “jumps” between states, each leaving the body more fragile.
The discussion moves from the limits of current drugs to the promise of new approaches. Peter argues that reducing fluctuations and increasing molecular fidelity could unlock far greater gains in healthspan and lifespan. Listeners gain a fresh lens on what drives aging, where the real breakthroughs may come from, and why the next frontier in longevity will require rethinking the problem altogether.
💡 Name: Peter Fedichev
💡 What they do: Founder & CEO
💡 Company: Gero (biotech company using AI to study aging)
💡 Noteworthy: Physicist turned biotech leader applying statistical physics to model biological age and resilience
💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn
Episode highlights:
[00:00:00] Opening Thoughts on Venture Capital
[00:00:58] Host Introduction and Show Welcome
[00:01:25] Guest Background: From Physics to Biotech
[00:02:42] Physics as a Tool for Biology
[00:05:19] Why Switch From Physics to Biology
[00:06:20] Discovering Aging Through Naked Mole Rats
[00:09:27] Defining Professional Goal in Aging
[00:10:15] Challenges in Crossing Disciplines
[00:11:58] Startups Driving Scientific Innovation
[00:14:09] Pharma, Biotech, and Market Dynamics
[00:16:23] Aging as a System-Level Problem
[00:18:56] Drugs With Modest Longevity Effects
[00:20:14] Aging vs. Disease: Functional Decline
[00:23:48] Squaring the Curve vs. True Aging
[00:26:02] Sponsor Message: InsideTracker
[00:26:56] Resilience in 90-Year-Olds
[00:27:55] Measuring Health With Longitudinal Data
[00:30:07] Aging as Jumps Between States
[00:31:49] Declining Recovery Times With Age
[00:33:33] Cancer Risk and Immune Decline
[00:34:30] Rare Events Driving Aging Jumps
[00:36:15] Mutations, Epimutations, and Reliability Theory
[00:38:31] Perfect Storm Failures in Aging
[00:40:26] Cancer, Diabetes, and System Crashes
[00:42:09] Searching for a Master Switch
[00:43:41] Reducing Physiological Noise to Slow Aging
[00:45:54] Targeting Fluctuations as Drug Strategy
[00:47:13] Stress, Hormesis, and Adaptation
[00:49:27] Evolutionary Role of Stress Responses
[00:50:58] Model Organisms: Mice vs. Dogs
[00:53:41] Why Dogs Mirror Human Aging
[00:55:42] Regulatory Edge: Aging Trials in Dogs
[00:56:42] Next-Gen Drugs Beyond GLP-1
[00:58:22] Epigenetic Rejuvenation vs. Noise Control
[01:00:11] Key Targets: Chromatin Modifiers
[01:01:10] Measuring Fluctuations With Biomarkers
[01:02:58] Dogs as Proof-of-Concept Model
[01:03:23] Defining Jumps Through Omics Data
Aging Is Functional Decline, Not Just Disease
Most approaches to longevity treat aging as the sum of diseases. Peter Fedichev challenges this view. He argues that aging is a deeper, systemic decline in resilience. Diseases emerge as byproducts of this decline, not its root cause. This shift in perspective matters: targeting individual diseases can add only a handful of years. Tackling functional decline directly could yield far greater gains. The insight reframes how we evaluate drugs and interventions. Instead of asking how a therapy delays diabetes or cancer, we should ask how it stabilizes the body’s core ability to recover, adapt, and resist stress. By focusing on resilience, scientists can work toward true lifespan extension—beyond the limits of disease-based thinking.
Startups Are the New Engines of Scientific Innovation
Peter highlights a structural crisis in academia. Traditional institutions often force researchers into narrow tracks, discouraging risky, cross-disciplinary work. Startups, powered by venture capital, are filling the gap. They can pursue bold questions that universities struggle to fund. Space exploration, AI, and even drug discovery now advance faster through startups than through centralized programs. Aging science, he argues, will follow the same path. Biotech startups can test disruptive ideas, iterate quickly, and bring new longevity therapies to market faster than big pharma or academic labs. This shift signals a new era in how breakthroughs emerge. For listeners, it’s a reminder that the future of longevity won’t be written only in journals—it will be built in agile labs taking risks outside the academic mainstream.
Reducing Physiological Noise Could Unlock Longer Life
Aging, in Peter’s model, is driven by “jumps”—rare, catastrophic shifts in biological systems caused by accumulated fluctuations. The more noise in these systems, the more often jumps occur. Over time, resilience weakens, recovery slows, and disease risk soars. The key, he argues, may be lowering this physiological noise. Long-lived species like naked mole rats show exceptional molecular fidelity, making fewer errors in DNA and protein synthesis. Humans could follow suit by damping biological fluctuations through lifestyle, monitoring, or future drugs. Continuous glucose tracking offers one example: smoother metabolic control means fewer damaging fluctuations. If therapies can reduce noise across systems, they may extend both healthspan and maximum lifespan. This insight reframes longevity science around stability—shifting focus from fighting symptoms to preserving equilibrium at the system level.
From Physics to Biology
Peter describes how his early training in theoretical physics led him toward biology and aging research. Physics gave him tools to study complex systems, but biology provided the unanswered questions. His turning point came after learning about animals like naked mole rats that defy aging. That discovery revealed how much low-hanging fruit still existed in biology. For Peter, shifting fields wasn’t just curiosity—it was recognizing that longevity science lacked a unifying theory, and physics could help build it.
“Then somebody showed me examples of animals that presumably do not age, like naked mole rats, bats, and others. And that's where I got really fascinated, because I was doing physics in good schools, and of course, the standards there were very high. So to get you interested, you really had to be shown something very interesting. And when I was a schoolboy, I knew that there were Rousseau and primitive creatures that do not age, like hydras and things like that. And for me that was, of course, a miracle.”
Why Startups Drive Innovation
Peter critiques academia’s rigid career paths, which discourage bold interdisciplinary work. He contrasts that with startups, where scientists can take risks and attract capital for practical inventions. Examples from AI, space, and biotech show how small teams now outpace large centralized programs. For aging research, this means breakthroughs are more likely to come from nimble ventures than traditional institutions.
“Larger organizations have less metabolism per head of their people, and that's why they cannot compete. So if you have a small team that is focused, I mean, they're failing fast, but who cares? The metabolism level in those teams is much higher. And I think this is a universal thing.”
Aging as Decline in Resilience
Peter explains why aging isn’t just the accumulation of diseases. Instead, it’s the gradual loss of resilience—the body’s ability to recover from stress. Diseases sit on top of this decline, but the root cause is functional degradation. People who reach 90 without major illnesses still suffer reduced strength, cognition, and adaptability. Understanding aging as resilience loss reframes how science should target interventions.
“Aging and disease are very different things. Aging is that functional decline that causes diseases, and disease is something that is built on top of that functional decline.”
The Role of Physiological Noise
Peter introduces his theory of “jumps”—rare, damaging shifts in biological systems triggered by accumulated fluctuations. Long-lived species maintain low error rates, avoiding these jumps. For humans, controlling physiological noise—like glucose spikes—may be the path to longer life. He suggests that future therapies will focus less on treating diseases and more on stabilizing the body’s systems to reduce unpredictable fluctuations.
“This sequence of jumps is aging. And in every new position where you find yourself, you are a little bit crippled. These positions are deleterious; they are pathological. We are evolutionarily optimized for our young position. So what happens is that the human body is too complex. We cannot control our position in this kind of medical variable space, and those jumps are diffusions.”
For science-backed ways to live a healthier, longer life, download InsideTracker's Top 5 biomarkers for longevity eBook at insidetracker.com/podcast
Similar Longevity By Design episodes we think you would love: