The Three Hundred: Welcome to John Schloendorn
Researcher John Schloendorn has joined The Three Hundred, pledging to donate $25,000 over the next 25 years to support the growth of the Methuselah Mouse Prize, or MPrize. The number of philanthropists of modest means who have joined the Three Hundred now stands at 98 - almost to the 100 mark!
As you may know, Schloendorn is presently working on LysoSENS research funded by the Methuselah Foundation's generous donors.
So how is Lyso-SENS supposed to work? In brief, we are looking for enzymes capable of selectively degrading the respective target material in the environment. This idea is heavily inspired by the field of environmental bioremediation (using microbes to degrade environmental contaminants). We are working in the lab of Bruce Rittmann, a well-known environmental engineer, as he has the expertise to find microbes that degrade weird stuff. We hope that we can isolate enzymes from these microbes and deliver them in a manner similar to current FDA-approved treatments for heritable lysosome storage diseases, where the missing enzyme is tagged with certain sugars for targeting and then injected into the bloodstream. You can learn more about the Lyso-SENS strategy from its originator and Methuselah Foundation chairperson Aubrey de Grey here (quick and easy) or here (detailed and technical).
Welcome aboard!