New Parts for People: Artificial Bone from European Space Agency

New Parts for People: Artificial Bone from European Space Agency

Scientists at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) artificially produced a piece of bone to test new bioprinting techniques. The point of the work was to find ways to give astronauts on extended missions access to what the agency’s website calls “spare parts” needed for bone or skin grafts, and even complete internal organs.

Read More

Family & Longevity: Genetics Can Dictate How Long You May Live

Family & Longevity: Genetics Can Dictate How Long You May Live

Here is an interesting fact for the dinner table… many studies have correlated longevity with genes and you may find out just how likely you are to surpass the 100 year mark. Did you know that individuals who have centenarian parents have been found to be less likely to have the age-related diseases that are common among older adults?

Read More

The Methuselah Foundation Successfully Closes its Boutique Venture Fund

The Methuselah Foundation Successfully Closes its Boutique Venture Fund

The Methuselah Fund or M Fund is mission-oriented and was conceived after successful angel investments by the Methuselah Foundation. The M Fund's investment thesis is based on six strategies aimed at increasing healthy longevity and its current portfolio includes four exciting companies.

Read More

The Investment Scene for Longevity is Heating Up!

The Investment Scene for Longevity is Heating Up!

Over 10 years ago, we realized that investing in longevity companies has a two-fold benefit. Such investments accelerate products into the market that we all benefit from and also pours more capital into private research, resulting in breakthroughs in the longevity space. 

Read More

Organovo Collaborates With Professor Melissa Little for Kidney Tissue Research

Organovo Collaborates With Professor Melissa Little for Kidney Tissue Research

SAN DIEGO and MELBOURNE, Australia and SPRINGFIELD, Va., Jan. 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Organovo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONVO) (“Organovo”), a three-dimensional biology company focused on delivering scientific and medical breakthroughs using its 3D bioprinting technology, today announced a collaboration with Professor Melissa Little and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia to develop an architecturally correct kidney for potential therapeutic applications.  The collaboration has been made possible by a generous gift from the Methuselah Foundation (“Methuselah”) as part of its ongoing University 3D Bioprinter Program.

Read More

Scientists Correct Mutated Gene that Causes Sickle Cell Disease in Stem Cells

Scientists Correct Mutated Gene that Causes Sickle Cell Disease in Stem Cells

For the first time, scientists were able to correct the genetic mutation that causes sickle cell disease in stem cells.

In a collaborative effort, researchers at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), and the University of Utah School of Medicine fixed the mutation in modified stem cells from patients with the condition using a CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing approach.

Read More

These companies search for a cure to aging– and their discoveries are amazing

These companies search for a cure to aging– and their discoveries are amazing

The ideas surrounding life enhancement are not new—in fact, records show an interest in the mysteries surrounding human life for centuries.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores the idea of creating a life, while Doctor Who achieves life extension through regeneration. Wolverine's mutations let him heal away his problems, and Captain America froze himself into the 21st century. Just look at almost any Star Trek episode and you’ll see how fascinated people are with the idea of extending life.

Read More

Irish scientists discover way to 'print' new bones to help those with deformities and catastrophic injuries

Irish scientists discover way to 'print' new bones to help those with deformities and catastrophic injuries

Irish scientists have developed a revolutionary new process which allows them to make human bones using 3D printing.

The new process could eliminate the need for bone grafts and could even make new joints to replace hips and knees and offers hope to those with large and complex bone defects or who have suffered catastrophic injuries.

Read More

Making memories stronger and more precise during aging

Making memories stronger and more precise during aging

When it comes to the billions of neurons in your brain, what you see at birth is what get — except in the hippocampus. Buried deep underneath the folds of the cerebral cortex, neural stem cells in thehippocampus continue to generate new neurons, inciting a struggle between new and old as the new attempts to gain a foothold in the memory-forming center of the brain.

In a study published online today in Neuron, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers atMassachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in collaboration with an international team of scientists found they could bias the competition in favor of the newly generated neurons.

Read More

Methuselah Fellowship Award Winner Tackles Macular Degeneration 

Methuselah Fellowship Award Winner Tackles Macular Degeneration 

Typically, a fellowship and participation in a research study to cure a major disease would occur years after completing undergrad, possibly even after earning a PhD. But Jennifer DeRosa is not a typical student.

Read More

Vascular Tissue Challenge Introduction Webinar

Vascular Tissue Challenge Introduction Webinar

The Vascular Tissue Challenge is a $500,000 prize purse for the creation ofthick, human vascularized organ tissue in an in-vitro environment that maintains metabolic functionality similar to in vivo native cells throughout a 30-day trial period. The Methuselah Foundation's New Organ Alliance and NASA's Centennial Challenges Program have partnered to create this challenge with the goal of advancing research on human physiology, fundamental space biology, and medicine taking place both on the Earth and the ISS National Laboratory.

Read More

Episode 007 - Control Alt Delete Cancer

Episode 007 - Control Alt Delete Cancer

Hello and welcome to Episode 7!  On this episode, we'll talk with Dr. Haroldo Silva and David Halvorsen of the SENS Research Foundation.  They've launched a new crowdfunding campaign designed to attack and stop cancer using a new approach.  You'll hear what that approach is, why they think it has a good chance of success, and you can help in the fight.

Read More

NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge to help in study of deep space environmental effects

NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge to help in study of deep space environmental effects

Those working in the field of bioengineering should be ready for a challenge worth $500,000. NASA, along with the nonprofit Methuselah Foundation's New Organ Alliance, has introduced the new prize competition, named as the Vascular Tissue Challenge. The first three teams that will succeed in creating thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment will be offered the prize money.

Read More

Episode 006 - Could Cryopreservation for Human Organs Save 700,000 - 900,000 Lives a Year?

Episode 006 - Could Cryopreservation for Human Organs Save 700,000 - 900,000 Lives a Year?

Join us on this episode of the Methuselah 300 Podcast as we interview Dr. Sebastian Eriksson Giwa;  co-founder and chairman of the Organ Preservation Alliance and co-founder and CEO of Sylvatica Biotech.  Dr. Giwa will discuss how Cryopreservation could transform and revolutionize transplantationCurrently at least 1 in 5 people on the organ waiting list die due to the inability of keeping organs viable for transport, resulting in 700,000 deaths a year by some estimates.  Dr Giwa and his team want to change that...

Read More

Episode 005 with Dr John Geibel; Yale University

Episode 005 with Dr John Geibel; Yale University

On this week's podcast, join us as we talk with Dr John Geibel, Director of Surgical Research and Professor of Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University.  Discover how his team is working hard to develop the first iterations of 3-D printable organs, a goal that will revolutionize the medical organ industry and save thousands upon thousands of lives.

Read More

Methuselah 300 Podcast Episode 004: Is a Synthetic Liver on the Horizon? With Dr Bryon Petersen

Methuselah 300 Podcast Episode 004: Is a Synthetic Liver on the Horizon? With Dr Bryon Petersen

Join us on this week's podcast as we interview Dr. Bryon Petersen, who is researching and developing a new device that could bridge the gap for those awaiting a new liver so that those in need can have a quality of life impossible for them now.  You'll here about where he is in the stage of development, and what timeline he is working toward.

Read More