Meet SIWA Therapeutics, the startup challenging aging, cancer and degenerative diseases. Senescent cells (cells that have stopped dividing due to damage) are causally connected with aging and aging-related diseases, including cancer. “While they don’t divide like cancer cells, senescent cells are highly active metabolically,” explains SIWA co-founder and CEO, Lewis Gruber. “They can poison the tumor micro-environment — inducing, progressing and metastasizing cancer in the cells around them.” Therefore, Gruber and SIWA developed a monoclonal antibody, SIWA 318H, that is sensitive to a marker appearing on both senescent cells and cancer cells, ultimately binding to the cell, destroying it and removing the debris. “In our first in-vivo study, we successfully removed the senescent cells,” explains SIWA co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Misty Gruber. “In the second in-vivo study, we reduced…