Fight Aging!

Starting on October 1st and continuing through to the end of the year we'll be running a grassroots fundraiser for SENS rejuvenation research, with all donations going to the SENS Research Foundation. Initiatives like this help to fund ongoing cutting edge work taking place at noted laboratories around the country, projects that build the foundations for future therapies to reverse the effects of aging and prevent all age-related disease. Aging is just damage to cells and tissue structures, we know what that damage is, and we can envisage the technologies needed to repair it in great detail. All that is lacking for rapid progress is funding: there are any number of researchers who would much rather be working on this exciting initiative than on the projects they can present raise funding to carry out. If you want to work on radical new directions in medicine, or early stage research of any sort for that matter, then you will be reliant on philanthropy, however: there are very few other sources of funding for ambitious rather than incremental work.

Over the next few weeks I and others will be collaborating to raise a matching fund for the October fundraiser, akin to the 3:1 match that we ran successfully last year. I'm pleased to say that a number of individuals and organizations have already answered my call for matching fund founders, and have stepped up to pledge their support:

• Christophe and Dominique Cornuejols
• David Gobel (Methuselah Foundation)
• Dennis Towne
• Jason Hope
• Michael Achey
• Reason (Fight Aging!)

Together we have pledged a total of $66,000 so far, and we hope that some of you will join us. If you are interested in pledging $5,000 to $15,000 dollars to take this matching fund to the next level, then here is your chance to do so. You'll be in the good company of long-standing supporters of SENS rejuvenation research: people with the foresight to see that we must act now if we are to build a better future, in which there is no suffering and no death due to the many medical conditions that accompany aging. One day aging will be looked upon as we see tuberculosis today: a controlled threat from past years, beaten by medical science. If that day is to happen soon enough for us, then we have work to do, however.

It is vitally important for grassroots fundraising to take place year after year: large scale donations from very wealthy sources only arrive after years of proven support and growth from an energetic and enthusiastic community. This is just as true of medical research into aging and longevity as it is for any other endeavor in this world of ours. In this sense, all of the thousands of donors to the SENS Research Foundation and the Methuselah Foundation before it are philanthropic trailblazers, leaders who point the way for those who will come later to put far greater weight behind efforts to develop rejuvenation therapies based on the SENS vision. Without us, the larger donations and next stage of growth will never happen. What we do is essential, but it can't be done without stepping forward, and acting to provide what support you can.

If you can join as a founder to fill out the matching fund, please contact me. I'd be delighted to hear from you.