USTP Enlightenment Salon: Matthew "Oki" O'Connor on Cyclodextrins & RAADfest 2025 Activist Panel

On Sunday, July 27, 2025, at 1 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, the U.S. Transhumanist Party presents a dual Virtual Enlightenment Salon, featuring conversations about both the scientific and activist dimensions of longevity.

First, watch Dr. Matthew “Oki” O’Connor of Cyclarity Therapeutics discuss Cyclarity’s efforts to develop new, easy-to-use drugs to prevent atherosclerosis, heart attacks, and strokes by addressing the underlying cause, the build-up of arterial plaque. The technology of Cyclarity Therapeutics removes arterial plaque by clearing the non-degradable cholesterol that accumulates within cells in the arterial walls. Its products are based on novel derivatives of a well-known, safe compound, and a new way of looking at cardiovascular disease. A panel including U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, Dr. Bill Andrews (the USTP's Biotechnology Advisor and Founder and CEO of Sierra Sciences), and Daniel Twedt (the USTP's Director of Community and Citizen Science and 2024 U.S. Vice-Presidential Candidate) asked detailed questions to explore Cyclarity's approach and its lead product, UDP-003.

Next, watch the Longevity Activist Panel from RAADfest 2025 in Las Vegas, recorded on July 12, 2025, and moderated by Dr. Jose Cordeiro, the U.S. Transhumanist Party's Technology Advisor and Foreign Ambassador in Spain. Panelists include U.S. Transhumanist Party Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, Cody Dean of Immortalis, and Joe Bardin of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension, which co-organized RAADfest 2025 along with the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF). The Longevity Activist Panel also had a special visit from the Grim Reaper himself, and he was banished from RAADfest... again, but not before answering some audience questions.

The Virtual Enlightenment Salon stream concludes with a musical section, featuring three compositions by USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II, remastered by USTP Legislative Director Jason Geringer:

- Man's Struggle Against Death, Op. 57
- Fanfare of Perseverance, Op. 58
- Transhumanist March, Op. 78

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Dr. Matthew O’Connor is the CEO of Scientific Affairs at Cyclarity Therapeutics. He was awarded his Master’s Degree in Neuroscience from Northwestern Medical in 1999 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Baylor College of Medicine in 2005. His postdoctoral research includes work at UC Berkeley on muscle stem cells and aging. He is the former VP of Research at SENS Research Foundation, where he oversaw a broad swath of research projects spanning many aspects of rejuvenation biotechnology from which he authored many papers and patents.

Cyclarity's research has combined computational and synthetic chemistry programs to create custom-engineered cyclodextrins (polysaccharides with known industrial and pharmaceutical excipient uses) to capture, and remove from cells, oxidized cholesterol derivatives such as 7-ketocholesterol, which are broadly toxic molecules with no known biological function.

Visit the website of Cyclarity Therapeutics at https://cyclaritytx.com/.

Visit the website of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension at https://www.rlecoalition.com/.

Visit the website of the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF) at https://levf.org.