Wednesday 21st, July 2010

2010: Where We Are Now

Methuselah Foundation took on a big challenge: extending healthy human life. From SENS to My Bridge 4 Life, we’ve supported and incentivized major initiatives and research to fulfill our mission. In 2010 we are focusing our attention on tissue and whole organ engineering. Read this newsletter and follow the links to our site to learn more about what we are doing now so you live longer and healthier.

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NewOrgan Network: A Community of Support

The availability of organ replacement for everyone is our vision. But we are practical. NewOrgan Network is a “right now” solution for anyone who needs or has had a transplant.

Last year we introduced My Bridge 4 Life, a wellness network designed to help patients, caregivers, supporters and individuals create a personalized wellness plan. If you haven’t looked at My Bridge 4 Life (it’s free to join), we encourage you to check it out. You can create a Bridge Plan and join or form a Community focused around a diagnosis of one of over 65 life threatening illnesses and conditions. NewOrgan Network is one of those Communities, designed specially for transplant recipients, those in need of a transplant and their caregivers and loved ones.
Explore the site; it’s free to join the NewOrgan Network.

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Two To Watch

Methuselah Foundation is always seeking new technology and applications that will result in longer life. With our 2010 focus on organs we have identified two leaders:

Organovo: combining biophysics, cell biology, computer aided design and high precision deposition to recreate the microarchitecture of even the most complex human tissue.

Silverstone Solutions: their Matchmaker product is a clinical application utilizing proprietary algorithms to match patients in need of kidney transplants with donors. Read more about these exciting initiatives on our website.

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Tissue Engineering: What Will Happen Along the Way?

Prizes have proven to be the most powerful tool for inspiring radical scientific breakthroughs. That’s why we offer prizes, including the recently announced NewOrgan Prize. The end result will allow many people to live longer and ““ if history is an indicator ““ the many innovations that come as a result of this work are unimaginable today. To build a replacement organ, from a patients own cells, and have it fully function, scientists must first develop and preserve all the tissues that build that organ ““ including muscle, nerves, arteries and veins.

Just 50 years ago the space race began. The innovations that came as a result of that are part of our lives now – including GPS, kidney dialysis and cordless power tools! Read more of the practical solutions that came as a result of the race to the moon.

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NewOrgan Scientific Advisory Board Announced

Leaders in the science of organ engineering have joined the NewOrgan Advisory Board:

• Stephen F. Badylak, University of Pittsburgh
• Anthony Atala, Wake Forest University
• Doris Taylor, University of Minnesota
• Gabor Forgacs, University of Missouri

The members of our Scientific Advisory Board are frontrunners in the research and development of new organ technology. In case growing organs sounds like science fiction, it’s revealing to look at some of their accomplishments related to tissue and organ regeneration of the past few years, from the fascinating possibility of Organ Printing to the results of Building a Human Bladder and Creating a Rat Heart.

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Organomics: A Better System

We believe it’s time for dramatic change.

This year we are focusing our efforts on tissue engineering and organ replacement. We are looking ahead 10 years and projecting that, with our help, everyone who needs an organ will get an organ. To realize our vision we are advocating nothing short of a whole new system. We call it Organomics. It is the science of organ regeneration combined with the economic means to make it possible.

The promise of Organomics is to provide a new organ to any patient in need, not from a donor or from the black market but from their own cells. NewOrgan Prize was created to reach this ambitious goal. Read our blog on Organomics.

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Mprize Update:

Competitors Explore Stress and How to Mimic CR

We know that stress isn’t good for us but could a lack of stress be the secret to a long life? Meet our newest competitor, Holly Brown-Borg. She is exploring whether some mice live longer than other because they have the capacity to fight off internal and external stresses. Fascinating”¦

Read more about Holly’s research.

A near death experience drove Alan Cash to look for an antidote to aging. He realized that three molecular pathways that extend life as a result of Calorie Restriction (known to slow aging and reduce age-associated diseases) had been identified and could be replicated by supplementing the diet with the metabolite oxaloacetate. Better than not eating”¦

Read more about Alan’s discovery.

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