Leslie Kenny
Creating the MovementThe MovementClosing the eight-to-thirteen year gap between a lab breakthrough and the people who need it.
Level 2 · BiohackingBiohacking UpgradesAutophagy, spermidine and the molecules that switch on the cell’s own renewal.
Live Beyond · A Great Mind on the Quest

Leslie
Kenny

Co-founder, Oxford Longevity Project
Given five years to live at 39 — and still here · Oxford

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Leslie Kenny is one of 100+ experts in the Live Beyond Project — a father & son quest for longevity.

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39
Age at diagnosis — and a five-year prognosis
+15
Years she has outlived it, so far
8–13 yrs
Lab to public — the gap she is attacking
9 of 12
Hallmarks of aging spermidine acts on
Who is Leslie Kenny

“Is there anything I can do?” “No.”

At thirty-nine, Leslie Kenny was diagnosed with lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and rheumatoid arthritis. She could not turn a doorknob or a tap. Her doctor handed her a box of injectable immunosuppressants for the arthritis and said that for the lupus there was nothing to be done. She was given five years.

What she remembers is her own astonishment — the certificates on the wall, the white coat, the stethoscope. Doctors are supposed to know everything, and a great many patients believe they do. So she asked whether there was anything at all she could do. The answer was no.

She was, at that moment, midway through her fifth round of IVF. So she went and found out for herself. She is now fifty-nine — fifteen years past the end of her prognosis — and her biological age, measured by GlycanAge, comes back at twenty-one. As she puts it, she has got better as she has got older, which is how we would all like it to work.

Out of that she co-founded the Oxford Longevity Project, aimed squarely at a specific number: it currently takes eight to thirteen years for a laboratory breakthrough to reach practitioners, patients, caregivers and the public. The project exists to shorten that.

Her particular preoccupation is autophagy — the cell’s self-renewal machinery, whose genetic basis won Yoshinori Ohsumi the Nobel Prize in 2016. Fasting activates it, but so do molecules in food: spermidine, nobiletin, curcumin. Spermidine is her particular subject, because like rapamycin it appears to act on at least nine of the twelve hallmarks of aging. It is abundant in plants, produced in our own tissues and gut biome, and present in enormous quantities in breast milk and semen — because it is essential to the survival of the next generation.

Oxford Longevity Project Autophagy & spermidine Patient-turned-founder Lab-to-public translation
Portrait of Leslie Kenny during the Live Beyond interview in Oxford
Oxford · July 2024

Oxford, in a room full of books

Where we met

We filmed with Leslie in Oxford — and it was Leslie who introduced us to Sir Muir Gray, whom we interviewed the same day. Hers is one of the few interviews on the quest where the expert is also the patient, and where the science is not abstract: every molecule she talks about, she went looking for because somebody told her there was nothing to look for.

The diagnosis
Age 39
Lupus, Hashimoto’s and rheumatoid arthritis — and five years.
Oxford
July 2024
Where we filmed, and where she introduced us to Sir Muir Gray.
The project
Oxford Longevity Project
Built to shorten the eight-to-thirteen year lag from lab to life.

“I’ve outlived my diagnosis of five years by an additional fifteen. I’ve got better as I’ve got older — and I think that’s how we all want it to be.”

— Leslie Kenny, Oxford
In her words

Doctors are not capable of knowing everything

“She said there was no cure. I said, “Is there anything I can do?” And she said, “No.””

Leslie Kenny · Oxford

She was the one in the white jacket, with the certificates on the wall. Doctors should know everything — that’s what I thought, and I think a lot of patients feel that way.

Leslie Kenny

It takes between eight and thirteen years before these lab breakthroughs get into the hands of the public.

Leslie Kenny

Autophagy is a Nobel Prize-winning idea. That idea needs to be everywhere.

Leslie Kenny

Spermidine is in breast milk and semen in huge quantities, because it is absolutely essential for the survival of the next generation.

Leslie Kenny
In her own words

Straight from the interview

From our conversation in Oxford — the diagnosis that started it, the gap she is trying to close, and why she keeps talking about one particular molecule.

The question that changed it

Told there was no cure, she asked whether there was anything she could do at all — and was told no. She points out that doctors cannot possibly know everything, and that patients assuming otherwise is itself part of the problem.

“Doctors are not capable of knowing everything. No one is.”

Oxford · from the interview

Eight to thirteen years

The Oxford Longevity Project exists because of that number: the delay between a discovery being made and it reaching the people who could use it. Her aim is translation speed, not new discovery.

“So they can make use of these novel discoveries faster than they’re currently reaching them.”

Oxford · from the interview

Why spermidine

It appears to act on at least nine of the twelve hallmarks of aging, comparable to rapamycin, while occurring naturally in plants, in our own gut biome and in the foods of at least one longevity hotspot — Okinawan natto, fermented longer than elsewhere in Japan.

“Spermidine inhibits so many hallmarks of aging — at least nine, if not all of them.”

Oxford · from the interview
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From the conversation

Leslie Kenny, in her words

Video interview

The video interview is coming. Recorded interviews go live after the launch of the film & series Live Beyond.

Selected passages from our conversation with Leslie Kenny — Oxford, July 2024. Lightly edited for readability. Nothing here is medical advice.

On the diagnosis

Leslie Kenny“When I was thirty-nine I was diagnosed with lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and rheumatoid arthritis. I could feel it in my fingers — couldn’t turn doorknobs or taps, had trouble typing. When the doctor told me I had rheumatoid arthritis, in a way it was good to know what it was. She gave me a big box of injectable immunosuppressants, and then said: that’s for the rheumatoid arthritis, but for the lupus there’s nothing we can do.”

On the moment she stopped deferring

Leslie Kenny“I was so astonished, because she was the one in the white jacket. She had the certificates framed on the wall behind her. She wore the stethoscope. Doctors should know everything — that’s what I thought, and I think a lot of patients feel that way. But doctors are not capable of knowing everything. No one is. And when she said there was no cure, I said, ‘Is there anything I can do?’ And she said, ‘No.’”

On where that left her

Leslie Kenny“I’ve outlived my diagnosis of five years of life by an additional fifteen, because I’m now fifty-nine — and my biological age according to GlycanAge is twenty-one. So I’ve got better as I’ve got older, and I think that’s how we all want it to be.”

On why the Oxford Longevity Project exists

Leslie Kenny“The end goal is to bring lab science breakthroughs to practitioners, patients, caregivers and the general public sooner — faster — so they can actually make use of these discoveries. At the moment it takes between eight and thirteen years before lab breakthroughs really get into the hands of the public.”

On autophagy

Leslie Kenny“An idea like autophagy is a Nobel Prize-winning idea — in 2016 Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize for discovering the genes responsible for self-renewal of the cell. That idea needs to be everywhere. We know that fasting activates autophagy, but there are other ways to activate it too: by getting certain molecules in your food, like spermidine or nobiletin, even curcumin.”

On spermidine

Marek Piotrowski“You’re a big fan of spermidine. Tell me why.”

Leslie Kenny“Spermidine inhibits so many hallmarks of aging. There are twelve hallmarks — the pathways down which we age — and they include stem cell dysfunction, mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere shortening, inflammation, leaky gut. Spermidine, like rapamycin, inhibits at least nine of them, if not all. It’s very plentiful in all plants. We also make it in our tissues and in our gut biome, and we get it in our diet. And in things we produce like breast milk or semen it is present in huge quantities, because it is absolutely essential for the survival of the next generation.”

On where to find it

Leslie Kenny“You’d find it in extremely high quantities in a Japanese delicacy called natto, which is fermented soybean. And in Okinawa, one of the longevity hotspots, they have a natto that is fermented for longer than in the rest of Japan.”

More passages from the full interview will be published here.

Continue the quest

More minds on the quest

Leslie works at the Creating the Movement layer with a foot in Biohacking Upgrades — getting what the lab already knows into the hands of people who need it now.

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The Oxford Longevity Project