MitoQ’s Dr Siobhan Mitchell on the role of mitochondria in healthspan, global longevity trends and the future of healthspan science.
Founders Longevity Forum is gearing up for its Singapore event next year, bringing leading voices from clinical innovation, academic research and investment to spotlight the rapidly evolving longevity sector. With a particular emphasis on advancements within the Asia-Pacific region, the forum promises a robust exchange of ideas and strategies aimed at reshaping healthspan and lifespan. As global interest in longevity intensifies, this event serves as a pivotal platform for uncovering breakthroughs and fostering collaboration among experts and visionaries.
Among the esteemed speakers is Dr Siobhan Mitchell, Chief Science Officer at MitoQ, the New Zealand-based biotech which developed a next-generation cell health molecule designed to penetrate deep within cells to reduce oxidative stress. This innovation supports the body’s primary energy source – the mitochondria – aiming to improve energy levels, enhance exercise recovery and promote healthy aging.
Longevity.Technology. Renowned for her work in advancing mitochondrial science, Dr Mitchell has played a key role in MitoQ’s development of cutting-edge supplements designed to optimize energy production and combat oxidative stress at the cellular level. Mitchell is well placed to highlight the importance of mitochondria in supporting healthspan, and to bring into focus how innovative approaches can transform the way we age and live healthier, longer lives. Ahead of FLF SG, we sat down with her to discuss MitoQ’s research breakthroughs, the challenges of scaling supplement innovation and tailoring healthspan strategies to individual needs.
Siobhan Mitchell on…
Current state of play
MitoQ is trying to understand the longevity area better in terms of not only our proprietary patented molecule, mitoquinone mesylate, which has many different clinical and preclinical studies addressing various aspects of aging and also longevity, but also how markets, consumers of different markets are thinking about longevity. Longevity can be understood very differently in different places; for example, in China, it might be more about wanting to live long and stay independent, and not being a burden to one’s children. In America, the focus is more on living the best life and being able to keep up with the latest tech. Other markets have other needs, so we’re trying to learn how to address all those needs and to make sure that MitoQ has the answers for them.
Looking ahead to Founders Longevity Forum Singapore
MitoQ has a very robust presence in China, so a lot of consumers know about us. And Singapore is a really interesting market because it’s recently been designated as a blue zone, an area of longevity, and it has some amazing universities like National University of Singapore and amazing aging researchers like Brian Kennedy and Barry Halliwell. We’re thinking this is a place to really start to grow our Asia Pacific understanding. After that, we’re going to focus on countries like Thailand and South Korea, where we know there is a lot of interest in preventing aging and people are interested in taking advantage of what’s out there in terms of supplements. I think that was less the case even like a few decades ago, but now there’s a huge population that’s interested in this. So we’re going to be there!
Ongoing research
We are now up to about 700 different studies on MitoQ and 25 published clinical trials; the opportunities for scalability are not so challenging when you have a molecule that many researchers are interested in.
We are engaged in a study looking particularly at postmenopausal women, because after menopause, women experience a lot more vascular issues, a lot more heart issues because of loss of estrogen. What can you do about it? A recent study showed that MitoQ could actually improve vascular blood flow in postmenopausal women, and at the same time, the researchers noticed that exercise could actually not improve vascular blood flow as much without the presence of estrogen. So MitoQ might be a really good answer for postmenopausal vascular and cardiovascular health.
The next step after that is going into areas such as does MitoQ synergize with exercise? And in fact, it does! There’s another study recently that showed that people with hypertension, when they’re asked to exercise and also take MitoQ, there is a synergistic effect in terms of their blood pressure. This is important, because we know that exercise is one of the best things for longevity, and we also like to point out that there are things to make it work even better – and MitoQ is one of those.
