The Methuselah Foundation Blog

June 17, 2009

Methuselah Foundation Advisory Board Member Nets $8.6M in Funding

Andrzej Bartke, PhD is Co-chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Mprize and also an Mprize record holder for his work in mouse longevity. We at the Foundation are pleased to note his recent success in fundraising for aging research:

A world-renowned scientist at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine has received an $8.6 million federal grant - the largest in the institution's history - to continue and expand his study of the factors affecting aging and longevity.

The grant, announced Tuesday, designates Andrzej Bartke as the lead researcher for a team that includes scientists at Ohio University, the University of Michigan, Mayo Clinic and the University of Texas Health Science Center.

...

He said the team will focus on mutant strains of mice that live longer than normal mice and examine the ways in which the aging process is affected by fat cells, genes and insulin - a substance that helps the body process sugar.

Posted by Reason at 06:59 PM |

June 15, 2009

Organ Printing: It's Not Science Fiction Anymore

Methuselah Foundation - Extending Healthy Human Life
FEATURED ARTICLE
Organ Printing: 
It's Not Science Fiction Anymore
“In the future we’ll be able to harness nature’s ability to form organs and build our own.” 
 
Dr. Gabor Forgacs made that prediction.  Now, he is making it a reality.  Gabor is a University of Missouri researcher doing groundbreaking work in regenerative medicine. He is also the Scientific Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Organovo, the latest company to receive support from you, the donors of the Methuselah Foundation. 
 
As we work to identify breakthrough technology that will help us reach our shared goal of extending healthy human life, Organovo stands out.  Thanks to your contributions we are able to assist them as they apply their proprietary technology to "print" new organs.

Organovo: Printing Organs

The "ink" in the bioprinting process employed by Organovo is composed of spheres packed with tens of thousands of human cells. These spheres are assembled or "printed" on sheets of organic biopaper. By precisely placing the cells with the bioprinter, and providing them with the proper natural developmental cues, they do exactly what they do in nature: they self assemble into fully formed, functional tissue.

The unique science blends biophysics and cell biology with computer aided design and high precision deposition to recreate the micro-architecture of the most complex human tissue. Organovo is currently developing blood vessels and intends to use the same technology to create organs or bio-constructs that reproduce organ function.

Dr. Forgacs envisions fully implantable organs printed from a patient's own cells. "You give us your cells: we grow them, we print them, the structure forms and we are ready to go," he says. "I am pretty sure that full organs will be on the market [one day]." These organs may not look like our organs but they will function just like the real thing.

The Possibilities for Transplants

Organ printing allows new tissue to replace diseased tissue. Since new tissue can be developed from cell sources from your own body, rejection of transplanted tissue is not an issue. The cells can be taken from youthful progenitor cells in your bone marrow to replace the older diseased cells. The cells ability to self-assemble means they will organize themselves into a functional tissue after being positioned.

This is where Organovo stands out: the challenges in using stem cells for medical therapies have shown that the results of injecting cells in solution are limited - cells alone can only do so much. But a functional piece of tissue from the patient's own progenitor cells, which can be matured outside the organism, ex vivo, under conditions similar to those it will see in vivo, can add tremendously to the therapeutic power of the cells themselves.

Tissue on Demand

The company anticipates becoming the leader in surgical tools made from human cells; providing raw material in the form of tissue for surgeons use. According to Organovo CEO Keith Murphy, "We expect our tissue printing technology to become the underlying foundation for 3D tissue research in the future. By enabling researchers all over the world to compose their functional tissue of interest and conduct research upon it, we can speed medical research across the spectrum and bring new tissue types to patients sooner."

Thanks to your continued support we are able to assist Organovo as they develop practical solutions to the problems of aging. This is a practical example of how we might see significant progress in extending our healthy lifespan.

 Featured Testimonial
 
How many lives will the Methuselah Foundation save? How about at least 66 million? Here's how I estimate that. Current world population of 6.6B. Conservatively assume 1% die each year from aging related causes, so that's 66 million aging driven deaths per year. Accelerate the date by which aging ceases to be a routine cause of death by just a single year, and 66 million lives will have been saved.
 
We think such a one year acceleration is a modest goal for the Foundation. If it stimulates a 10 year acceleration, that would mean 660 million lives saved! We want to help the Foundation do that, and to be there to enjoy the results.
 
 
The Shapard Family
Thomas Shapard, Joanne Shapard, and Catherine Phillips

Read More Testimonials

Foundation Profile:
David Sinclair

David A. Sinclair, Ph.D. is the Co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Molecular Biology of Aging, an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Member of the Broad Institute for Systems Biology, co-founder of Sirtris Pharma-ceuticals and a competitor for the MPrize.  A native of St. Ives Australia, in 1995 he joined Leonard P. Guarente (another MPrize competitor) at MIT to pursue his interest in longevity and aging.  He has been at Harvard since 1999.

Read More About David and His Work

Join The


Last call!  This special group of donors has responded to the  challenge to contribute $1000 a year for 25 years.  Fill one of the few remaining slots and your donation will go to work immediately funding innovative technology that will change science forever.  
 
As a 300 member you'll get advance notice of news and events, have the opportunity to participate in exclusive webinars, receive a monthly email from Dave Gobel and have the satisfaction of knowing your gift will result in extended healthy life for yourself, your family and all humanity. 
 
More news on The 300 monument coming soon – join now and have your name and message included.

Posted by Reason at 07:07 PM |

June 10, 2009

Methuselah Foundation Newsletter, June 2009

Methuselah Foundation - Extending Healthy Human Life

LONG TERM STRATEGY
Organ Printing: It's Not Science Fiction Anymore

"In the future we'll be able to harness nature's ability to form organs and build our own."

Dr. Gabor Forgacs made that prediction. Now, he is making it a reality. Gabor is a University of Missouri researcher doing groundbreaking work in regenerative medicine. He is also the Scientific Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Organovo, the latest company to receive support from you, the donors of the Methuselah Foundation. As we work to identify breakthrough technology that will help us reach our shared goal of extending healthy human life, Organovo stands out. Thanks to your contributions we are able to assist them as they apply their proprietary technology to "print" new organs.

Read more about Gabor and Organovo and watch a video that explains the technology behind his remarkable achievements

____________________________________________________


NEAR TERM STRATEGY
New Site Feature: Tips4Life

Many of you have asked: what can we do now to extend life? Through My Bridge 4 Life™, Methuselah Foundation fills that immediate need. My Bridge 4 Life is an online and offline community tool that takes the overwhelming nature of a major health crisis; divides it into manageable phases; sets goals for each phase with each user and their community; AND builds a wellness plan for life in the process.

In an early development stage, the first application Tips 4 Life is a global database of real-world wisdom. Take a few minutes today to post your experiences and insights and ask friends and family to share their tips related to a life-threatening health challenge they have faced.

Learn about My Bridge 4 Life at Mfoundation.org

____________________________________________________


MID TERM STRATEGY
Harvard Scientist Explores: Longevity, Red Wine & Calorie Restriction

Fifteen years ago David Sinclair moved half way around the world to pursue his interest in longevity. David didn't want to take the usual route, looking for the genes that ended life, he wanted to figure out how to extend it.

Today he strives to devise ways to prevent and treat major diseases by manipulating genes that control how fast we age. David has been a frontrunner in the dramatic shift in research related to the aging process. Ignoring the conventional wisdom that the aging process was too complex to find drugs that could slow it, he works to uncover single genes that could dramatically extend the lifespan of laboratory organisms such as yeast, worms, flies and mice.

This transformation has left us with the fact that the rate of aging is not predetermined - it is naturally regulated by a few critical genes. These genes underlie the remarkable effects of the diet known as calorie restriction (CR), which delays aging in nearly every species tested, from yeast to primates. According to Dr. Sinclair, CR is currently the only treatment that is proven to prevent all diseases of aging including cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes and neurodegeneration.

In his own words: "Recent studies in our lab and others...

Read more about David's Research

____________________________________________________


MFoundation News Coverage

KTLA in Los Angeles did a story on The Methuselah Foundation, interviewing our Chief Marketing Officer Roger Holzberg and covering the 3-part strategy and Organovo (read more on Organovo in this newsletter). Take a look.

A recent press release covered the 3-part strategy and another about our support of Organovo was released out this week. All press releases are now posted on the site.

Featured Testimonial

"How many lives will the Methuselah Foundation save? How about at least 66 million? Here's how I estimate that. Current world population of 6.6B. Conservatively assume 1% die each year from aging related causes, so that's 66 million aging driven deaths per year. Accelerate the date by which aging ceases to be a routine cause of death by just a single year, and 66 million lives will have been saved. We think such a one year acceleration is a modest goal for the Foundation. If it stimulates a 10 year acceleration, that would mean 660 million lives saved! We want to help the Foundation do that, and to be there to enjoy the results."

The Shapard Family
Thomas Shapard, Joanne Shapard, and Catherine Phillips

Read More Testimonials

Foundation Profile: David Sinclair

David A. Sinclair, Ph.D. is the Co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Molecular Biology of Aging, an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Member of the Broad Institute for Systems Biology, co-founder of Sirtris Pharma-ceuticals and a competitor for the MPrize. A native of St. Ives Australia, in 1995 he joined Leonard P. Guarente (another MPrize competitor) at MIT to pursue his interest in longevity and aging. He has been at Harvard since 1999.

Read More About David and His Work

Join The 300

Last call! This special group of donors has responded to the challenge to contribute $1000 a year for 25 years. Fill one of the few remaining slots and your donation will go to work immediately funding innovative technology that will change science forever. As a 300 member you'll get advance notice of news and events, have the opportunity to participate in exclusive webinars, receive a monthly email from Dave Gobel and have the satisfaction of knowing your gift will result in extended healthy life for yourself, your family and all humanity.

More news on The 300 monument coming soon - join now and have your name and message included.

Posted by Reason at 09:27 PM |

June 03, 2009

An Exclusive Webinar with Organovo for Members of The 300

Members of The 300 contribute greatly to Methuselah Foundation's initiatives, and share a commitment to significant change in the approach taken to healthcare and aging. As the Foundation has grown, our staff have indentified some promising technologies being developed now in addition to our continuing support of the work of Dr. Aubrey De Grey and the SENS Foundation. Today our CEO, Dave Gobel, invites members of The 300 to explore one of the recent additions to the Foundation stable of long term initiatives:

I am particularly excited about our support of Organovo and I thought you would be too. This company is a pioneer and leader in the exciting field of organ printing: developing technologies adapted from the printing industry to build new tissue that looks like and works as well as organs produced by natural means.

Rather than attempt to explain their work to you I have asked Keith Murphy, Chief Executive Officer at Organovo, to tell you about their research and their latest innovations in a private webinar for members of The 300 I'm sure you will want to join in and hear what they have to say, it is a fascinating field of research and development.

We now have 247 members of The 300, and anticipate reaching our full membership this summer. Please spread the word to anyone you know who might want to join us in our efforts to combat aging.

Posted by Reason at 05:56 PM |


The Methuselah Foundation is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization; its IRS tax identification number is 54-2040344.