The Mprize for anti-aging research gets a good mention in a recent PLoS Biology article on research prizes. Personally, I believe you'll be hard pressed to do better than harnessing the engine that is human competitive instinct - but not everyone thinks that way, it seems: "It is not so much that legitimate ageing researchers do not want to be seen as actively seeking a prize, as it is that a research strategy built on the goal of winning the prize would be way too high a risk. When I heard about [the M Prize] we were in the midst of our ovary transplant mouse studies and it crossed my mind momentarily that maybe we'd be in the running. ... If we were to ever win this prize (hypothetically), it would be by default rather than by inspiration; that is, we would claim the prize (since why not?) but that would not have been the driving force." To me that simply sounds like the Mprize fund needs to grow some more - so donate!

Link: http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030288