On February 3rd, Channel 4 in the UK will be showing a Christopher Sykes documentary on Methuselah Foundation chair Aubrey de Grey and his Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) – scientific research aimed at repairing the molecular and cellular damage of aging. From the Radio Times entry:

Award-winning director Christopher Sykes follows computer scientist turned renowned biologist Dr Aubrey de Grey on the road as he investigates the possibilites of immortality. Hailed as a genius by some experts and publicly denounced by other scientists, de Grey expands on his theory of immortal life by identifying the ‘Seven Deadly Things’ that cause ageing and proposes solutions for them all. Will this lead to indefinite life extension in the future and is it something we really want?

The Methuselah Foundation – through the actions and generosity of its many supporters – presently funds research in two areas of SENS: the search for bacterial enzymes capable of safely degrading damaging biochemicals and metabolic waste products that build up with age, and halting the effects of age-related damage to mitochondria by moving mitochondrial DNA into the cellular nucleus.

Here is the latest from Michael – quite a few this week, as some older articles on the Methuselah Foundation chair seem to be making the rounds once more through the focused attention of aggregation and social news sites.

http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2007/01/must-know-terms-for-21st-century_11.html
… Blog posts can be strange and unpredictable things. There are times when I pour a ton of energy and creativity into a post only to have it largely ignored. Other times I quickly and haphazardly put something together and it ends up attracting thousands of hits. Such was the case with my recent post, Must-know terms for today’s intelligentsia. …
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http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=288
… Science fiction, computer games, anime”¦ cyborgs are everywhere. Transhumanists are philosophers who believe that one day, cybernetic upgrades will be so powerful, elegant, and inexpensive that everyone will want them. This page lists ten major upgrades that I think will be adopted by 2050. #10. Disease immunity. Between 20 and 40 years …
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http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=311
… This is great news. Prominent economists are writing papers and articles that reveal them to be blatantly transhumanistic. Even though I’ve been reading literature at the intersection of cognitive psychology and economics for a while, it was my colleague Michael Vassar who really kicked off my interest in economics in early 2004. Robin Hanson is …
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http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=314
… The World Transhumanist Association just held an election for its Directorship. Out of the 5 seats that were vacated, three were held by incumbents, and two new Directors joined. Here I’ll go over the five winners of the election and take a little look at what these transhumanists are doing. The WTA is made up of people who pay dues to support …
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http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/01/08/de-debunking/
… Debunking debunking bad debunkers January 8th, 2007 Yesterday I attended a talk by Aubrey de Grey, the purpose of which seemed to be to get feedback on messaging to potential donors. The feedback was good, but perhaps hard to hear. I hope de Grey uses some of it. Much of the feedback could apply to anyone selling a radical program. Don’t dwell …
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http://pimm.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/resveratrol-goes-to-the-clinic-a-pulitzer-for-david-stipp/
… Resveratrol goes to the clinic: a Pulitzer for David Stipp! Posted by attilachordash on January 21st, 2007 Truth to be told I am not really interested in the Resveratrol story neither as a researcher nor as a life extension supporter. First, it is about classical pharmacology, seeking the molecular targets of a relatively simple molecule back …
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http://ironlord.livejournal.com/88791.html
… Regular readers of blackmetalbaz’s ramblings may remember him mentioning Aubrey de Grey, who reckons we could all live to be 1000 years old… despite the obvious consequences of doing so. Call ADG a nutter if you like, but there are ways to go about criticising his actions and ways not to. And possibly the worst example I’ve seen is …
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http://www.breezedebris.com/2007/01/exploring_immor.html
… This is a film by the Immortality Institute that explores various aspects of extreme life extension including cryonics (cryogenics), caloric restriction, transhumanism, and other scientific pursuits of extreme life extension. I am not sure I would want to live forever but it is interesting to see those who are most seriously dreaming this …
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http://blog.libero.it/Amicinpiazza/2147695.html
… Aubrey de Grey Lo scienziato di Cambridge: i test con le cavie mi danno ragione. Ora mobiliterò il mondo per vivere mille anni. E’ la formula di Aubrey de Grey, uno dei più controversi professori di Cambridge. Parla al telefono dal suo studio, con voce un po’ roca e piglio …
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http://kevindewalt.com/blog/2007/01/09/longevity-power-of-red-envelopes/
… Today is an exciting day for me. I just made my first contribution to the Methuselah Foundation Mprize , “a scientific
competition designed to draw attention to the ability of new technologies to slow and even reverse the damage of the aging process, preserving health and …
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http://www.ogigia.com/2007/01/14/chi-vuole-vivere-per-sempre/
… Chi vuole vivere per sempre? Scritto il 14 Gennaio, 2007 Sette terapie per vivere mille anni. E’ la formula di Aubrey de Grey, uno dei più controversi professori di Cambridge. E come potrebbe non esserlo? Dal look da cowboy alle idee provocatorie di chi – lo accusano i critici – gioca a fare Dio. Vivere 10 secoli non è …
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http://www.mayyoubeforeveryoung.com/index.php/2007/01/17/life-extension-option-win-a-nobel/
… Life extension option: win a Nobel Okay, so this option isn’t open to most of us, but winning a Nobel prize tends to add a couple of years to your life. Being nominated just isn’t good enough. You have to win. From Biology News Net: The researchers carried out their study to try to answer a long-standing question for economists and medical …
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http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=36034702&blogID=212976361
.. I’m going to live forever Some scientists predict that today’s children will be able to live for more than 1,000 years. Is immortality just around the corner? Bryan Appleyard peers into a hair-raising future without death Somewhere in the world today lives a child who will change everything. Imagine this child is called Sally. …
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http://www.roberthampton.me.uk/archives/807
… Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes medical science will soon have advanced to the point where people will be able to live to the age of 1,000. As if that wasn’t mindblowing enough, check out Aubrey’s fantastic beard! I quite like the idea of living for ten millennia centuries. Either that, or have my brain transplanted into …
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http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=143986128&blogID=214269197
… It’s not even a week into the new year, 2007, and I wonder what the year will bring. When 2006 ended, many died. How many die each year? How many are born? Why must we constantly recycle ourselves through birth, life and death? As I contemplate this cycle, especially focusing on thoughts around death, I’m drawn to the concept of physical …
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http://sibylant.blogspot.com/2007/01/ive-seen-this-coming.html
… Will Kill for Immortality I’ve seen this coming… Meanwhile, life span has actually decreased in China and Russia. And some say that due to pollution and environmental damage, today’s children are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. Then there are the killings. But this is true: some imperceptible change has taken place. I …
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http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=27203837&blogID=215511937
… Tuesday, July 11, 2006 Is Defeating Aging Only a Dream? No one has won our $20,000 Challenge to disprove Aubrey de Grey’s anti-aging proposals. By Jason Pontin Last year, Technology Review announced a $20,000 prize for any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey’s “Strategies for Engineered Negligible …
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http://beppeanz.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!CA5F417F3FF03BB7!148.entry
… Aubrey de Grey forse conosce la formula…!! Ben 7 terapie servono ad allungare la vita, secondo il barbuto professore di Cambridge, che con 1oo milioni di dollari all’anno per 10 anni riuscirebbe ad effettuare i primi test completi su delle cavie. Potete trovare l’articolo nel link qua sotto… …
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http://ethernettv.net/?p=53
… I’ve had the incomparably humbling privilege of meeting Dr. de Grey a couple of times. It’s my personal opinion that we have amongst us our own Mendel, Pasteur, or Semmelweis, right here, right now. It’s been interesting to observe the improvement and polish of the public presentations for the SENS methodologies. In this BBC segment, it’s …
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http://whatisfuturology.com/?p=27
… According to the Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey, our life expectancy will soon extend to 1,000. “I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.” he said. “I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing. It is not just …
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http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=61089844&blogID=214276915
… This is the video that got me interested in life extension. It’s a 20 minute video. Theres a lot of information to cram into 20 minutes, but Wikipedia gives pretty much the full presentation here. Information on the man behind most of the movement is here. I would like you to look in particular at the agrument against him in this PDF. Of …
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A disclaimer: Please note that the blogs linked to here do not represent any official position or opinions of the Methuselah Foundation, and are presented here for your reading. The blogs we present represent only the opinions of their owners and commentators.

Lorton, Virginia – The Methuselah Foundation has appointed Allison Taguchi as its Development Officer, responsible for structuring and executing its fundraising efforts. Allison has over 12 years of fundraising and business development experience at research institutes, universities, government agencies, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations. Examples include: Rushford Nanotech Laboratory, Department of Defense, Oakland Military Institute, and University of Hawaii Biotech Research Center.

Working out of the Bay Area, Allison is arranging a series of outreach events throughout 2007 and beyond, at which Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Chairman and Founder of the Foundation, will articulate the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) roadmap for directed research into obviating the fundamental mechanisms of aging. Allison said, “I’m looking forward greatly to working with the Methuselah Foundation. We have a slate of SENS-related research projects ready to go that only await funding; these and the Mprize – which will be awarded to researchers who substantially extend the lifespan of laboratory mice – will attract much interest in the Bay Area tech community and beyond.”

Methuselah Foundation CEO Dave Gobel said, “We are delighted to have recruited someone of the outstanding caliber of Allison to work with us on developing our fundraising operations. Her expertise and wide network of contacts will be great asset as we ramp up the operations in 2007.”

About the Methuselah Foundation

The Methuselah Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to accelerating the development of foreseeable, science-based therapies to combat aging. Its main activities are the funding of SENS research, and the Methuselah Mouse Prize, which is being offered to the scientific research teams that significantly extend the lifespan of middle-aged laboratory mice. Further details of the Methuselah Foundation can be found at: www.methuselahfoundation.org

A warm welcome from the Methuselah Foundation volunteers and supporters to the newest members of The Three Hundred: Justin Bonomo and Patrice Levin. Those of you familiar with the poker world might recognize Justin’s name:

The results speak for themselves. I played eight out of the twelve events, and I final tabled FOUR of them. Literally the toughest players in the world were playing all of these events, and only a few players were able to make two final tables. NO ONE made more than three final tables, except for me of course. There is no debate that I had the best performance at this tournament.

I am also happy to say that as I promised a few months ago, I will be giving 5% of my winnings to www.Sens.org. I said this would include the two 5k events and the 15k events, but it seems silly to include only 3 of my 4 final tables, so I will be giving them 5% from all of these events. This comes out to $13,250 which I hope can make a difference. Peter Theil pledged to match 50% of all donations towards SENS research, so this will actually be a $20,000 donation thanks to his help.

Patrice Levin had this to say:

I encourage everyone to consider this most worthwhile project. I for one, would like to be around to see my Granddaughter graduate; the first settlement in space; a trillion sunrises and have time for at least a thousand walks on a beach with my spouse… I want a tomorrow without illness, without memory loss, without the many problems that plague our species. Please give to the Mouse!

Thank you both for taking the initiative to support the Mprize and SENS research! Your donations will join those of many others to help accelerate us all towards the defeat of age-related frailty, disease and death.

We’re pleased to note that early registration is open for the third Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) conference, organized by Methuselah Foundation chair Aubrey de Grey. The conference will be held from 6-10 September 2007 at Queens’ College, Cambridge, UK:

The purpose of the SENS conference series, like all the SENS initiatives (such as the journal Rejuvenation Research and the Methuselah Mouse Prize), is to expedite the development of truly effective therapies to postpone and treat human aging by tackling it as an engineering problem: not seeking elusive and probably illusory magic bullets, but instead enumerating the accumulating molecular and cellular changes that eventually kill us and identifying ways to repair — reverse — those changes, rather than merely to slow down their further accumulation. Almost 50 illustrious speakers are already confirmed.

SENS 3 will therefore continue and extend the superlative quality of the first and second SENS conferences, held in 2003 and 2005. The calibre of those meetings can be seen from the abstracts [IABG10, SENS2], the online audio recordings of the talks [IABG10, SENS2] and most of all from the proceedings volumes, which were published as volume 1019 of the prestigious Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and as issues 9(1) and 9(2) of the high-impact (IF 8.571) journal Rejuvenation Research.

If you’d like to see more of the science behind Foundation sponsored research programs such as the LysoSENS and MitoSENS work, you should work your way through the resources above – it’s fascinating stuff.

Many thanks from the Methuselah Foundation team go to John Karafilis, the 121st philanthropist to step up to the plate and help to accelerate our path towards the end of aging – towards the medical knowledge and technology to bring about the end of age related frailty, suffering and disease. Welcome to The Three Hundred!

Aging is “just” changes in our biochemistry – a much more complex version of the wear and tear in any machinery. Physics and chemistry tells us that we can repair this wear and tear in the human body; it isn’t impossible to put things back the way they were – it’s “just” hard. But we cannot do it today, and every year more in which can cannot repair the damage of aging is a year of suffering and disease for hundreds of millions – and death for tens of millions more.

Aging is the great scourge; the greatest single root cause of death and disability in the world today. What better target for this modern age of biotechnology?

I have been lax in welcoming the new members of The Three Hundred over the past few weeks, generous supporters all of the Mprize for longevity research and SENS research funded by the Methuselah Foundation. They are the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research (of course, based upon their year-end donation), Clay Woolam, Darren Maupin, Christopher Dowling and David Stern. Thank you all for stepping up the plate and helping to advance the quest to cure aging!

While looking at the master list of donors to the Methuselah Foundation, Richard R. Puckett’s comment caught my eye:

With this donation I hope to strike a small blow for a more hopeful future; one where people live longer, healthier lives and the wisdom of age is combined with the energy and passion of youth.

I think we can all agree with that vision for the years ahead.

Every little bit counts folk – even if you’re not ready to join The Three Hundred, give a little to show that you support research for longer, healthier lives. People of far greater wealth than you or I hear that sort of support, shown by hundreds or thousands, as a call to action – but it is up to those of us of more modest means to get the ball rolling by demonstrating that we care enough to act.

Herein lies the latest installment of Michael’s view of the blogosphere:

http://instapundit.com/archives2/2006/12/post_1032.php
… THE MPRIZE FOR LONGEVITY RESEARCH has now passed the $4 million mark. Plus, a Leon Kass retrospective at FightAging.org. …
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http://blog.wired.com/biotech/2006/12/families_agains.html
.. [ Mprize_1] The Vyff family pushed the Methuselah Mouse Prize past the $4 million mark with their $3,000 donation raised by the 8-year-old daughter. The money will be awarded to the research team that doubles the lifespan of a middle-aged mouse. Apparently this is a family with a passion for promoting their mom’s new book longevity. Shannon …
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http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/001092.html
… Well, the MPrize has achieved another milestone in their efforts to help you live longer. The Methuselah Mouse Prize now sits at four million dollars. That’s a four followed by six zeroes, folks. If you haven’t visited the MPrize site in a while, stop by. There’s a lot of great information there. Take a moment to read up on opportunities for …
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http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2006/12/aronofskys-pro-death-fountain.html
… I’m somewhat of a film buff, particularly sci-fi, so when it comes time to watch an eagerly anticipated movie it’s often difficult for me to leave my emotional baggage and lofty expectations at the door. Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, The Fountain , is a good case in point. I was totally expecting to love this movie, but instead now find …
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http://jwbats.blogspot.com/2007/01/anti-aging-molecule-discovered.html
… Anti-Aging Molecule Discovered A team of South Korean scientists on Sunday claimed to have created a “cellular fountain of youth,” or a small molecule, which enables human cells to avoid aging and dying. The team, headed by Prof. Kim Tae-kook at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, argued the newly-synthesized …
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http://patrissimo.livejournal.com/456249.html
… In the last two years I’ve lost two relatives to a degenerative disease called gniga. Gniga strikes late in life, and is extraordinarily common, being the root cause of perhaps 90% of deaths in the US. Yet for some reason, there is little research being done on how to treat gniga, with the focus mainly being on the individual organ systems it …
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http://pimm.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/james-watsons-2-sentences-on-the-extension-of-life/
… Last week I got the idea to interview James Dewey Watson, 78, co-discoverer of
DNA structure, founding father of molecular biology, concerning his opinion about the technological possibilities of life extension. But my …
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http://pimm.wordpress.com/2006/12/16/kevin-dewalts-brand-new-blog/
… Kevin Dewalt, who was blogterviewed by me on his life extension centered life, started his personal blog this week. Excerpts from Kevin’s last post inspired by a lunch with David Gobel, founder and CEO of the Methuselah Foundation: “The easiest way to simplify …
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http://rationallongevity.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-on-vulnerability-longevity-and.html
… I have been following this discussion on Overcoming Bias with interest over the past few days — the question of “what are any person’s chances of staving off age-related decline and death”? is one that invariably produces a great diversity of responses. My take on the matter, as explained in my last entry is that while nobody with a serious …
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http://kysor.blogspot.com/2006/12/stem-cell-therapy-in-pill.html
… In November 2001, Dr. Michael West made a startling announcement. Dr. West’s laboratory, Advanced Cell Technology, had just created the first human embryonic stem cells, and this breakthrough had been published in the Journal of Regenerative Medicine. Dr. West’s announcement became instant headline news around the world. Scientists at Advanced …
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http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=18321701&blogID=212310305
… We stand on the threshold of the most profound and transformative event in the history of humanity, the “Singularity.” What is the Singularity? From my perspective, the Singularity is a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching that human existence on this planet will be …
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http://rockyromero.typepad.com/longevity/2006/12/ted_2006_confer.html
Link to Google Video of Aubrey at TED 2006
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http://cell-times.blogspot.com/2006/12/welcome-to-cell-times_30.html
… Hi, my goal here is to share information related to life extension technology. I truly beleive we are on the verge of a colossal breaktrough. Science has given us a new way of thinking that will soon allow us to modify our perspective of life and possibly give some of us the chance to see the end of this century and live beyond. Stem-cell …
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A disclaimer: Please note that the blogs linked to here do not represent any official position or opinions of the Methuselah Foundation, and are presented here for your reading. The blogs we present represent only the opinions of their owners and commentators.