800: The "Exhausted" Fibroblast: Reversing Skin Aging & Modulating mTOR with Dr. Rahul Mehta
Beauty Bytes with Dr. Kay: Secrets of a Plastic Surgeon™
Kay Durairaj, MD, FACS @beautybydrkay
4.9 • 608 Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
In this paradigm-shifting episode of Beauty Bytes, I sit down with Dr. Rahul Mehta, the co-founder of Rapalogix Health and former head of R&D at SkinMedica. We dive deep into the future of cellular longevity and why the "do more, laser more, peel more" approach might actually be exhausting your fibroblasts.
Dr. Mehta explains the science behind mTOR, the master regulator of our cell cycle, and how constantly keeping it in "growth mode" prevents our skin from repairing itself. We discuss his breakthrough molecule, RLX-201 (Re-!), which inhibits TORC1 to trigger repair pathways without the side effects of systemic rapamycin.
We also cover the fascinating data showing how this technology made 56-year-old fibroblasts morphologically resemble 23-year-old cells, effectively reversing cellular aging rather than just masking it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, hello, hello, guys. You're listening to Beauty Bites with Dr. K, Secrets of a Plastic |
| 0:20.0 | Surgeon, and today's podcast is a fascinating one. |
| 0:23.3 | We're going to dive deep into cellular longevity, how to increase the health span and lifespan of your cells, your fibroblastic, grow your collagen. |
| 0:32.5 | We're interviewing Dr. Rahul Neta. He is a doctorate in pharmacologic science from West Virginia University and a |
| 0:40.5 | bachelor's of pharmacy. He has over 35 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development, |
| 0:47.5 | including six years of academic research. He is currently the CEO and founder, co-founder of Rapologics Health, and this is a biopharma company |
| 0:57.1 | that's applied to all of the learnings of longevity science and is coming into the aesthetic space |
| 1:03.0 | and aesthetic medicine. |
| 1:04.2 | They're bringing longevity science to dermatology and aesthetics. |
| 1:07.8 | Prior to being at Rapologics, he was at SkinMedica, the R&D team since 2005, |
| 1:13.3 | and he's really been in his career focusing on using healthcare kind of very important |
| 1:20.8 | holistic evidence-based science to change how we do skin care. And his passion now is just to go beyond that current approach of everything we do in the |
| 1:31.9 | skincare world and actually bring some longevity science to it. |
| 1:35.2 | So we're going to learn all about his new biggest, I think the newest, biggest thing that's |
| 1:42.0 | happening in skincare probably in the last decade. |
| 1:45.6 | And this is a whole paradigm shift on how we treat ourselves, how we make our fibroblasts, work |
| 1:51.0 | harder and better at cellular longevity. |
| 1:53.1 | Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Mita. |
| 1:55.9 | How are you? |
| 1:56.4 | Thank you very much, Dr. Kay. |
| 1:57.9 | Thank you very much, Dr. Gay. |
| 1:59.1 | I'm honored to be here on the Beauty Bytes podcast. |
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