Fight Aging! SENS Fundraiser Update: In the Home Stretch, Just a Few Thousand To Go
As I'm sure you're all aware, back in October Fight Aging! launched a matching fundraiser in support of the work of the SENS Research Foundation. Together Christophe and Dominique Cornuejols, Dennis Towne, Håkon Karlsen, Jason Hope, Methuselah Foundation, Michael Achey, Michael Cooper, and Fight Aging! established a $100,000 matching fund and challenged the community to donate another $50,000 by the end of the year, with all of this going to expand ongoing rejuvenation research programs. The SENS Research Foundation coordinates scientific efforts essential for the near future production of therapies capable of repairing the cellular and molecular damage that causes aging. The Foundation staff also advocate in and beyond the research community, organize noted conferences such as this year's Rejuvenation Biotechnology 2014, and help to build the next generation of enthusiastic scientists, people who see treatments for aging as the hot new thing in cutting edge biotechnology.
The Foundation takes a very careful, strategic view on research, and focuses funding on fields needed for tomorrow's rejuvenation toolkit but which are at present stalled, ignored, or poorly funded - such as work on mitochondrial DNA repair and removal of various forms of harmful metabolic waste, such as those that clog up and damage lysosomes with age. Early stage research in most areas of biotechnology is becoming quite cheap these days, and a lot can be done with a few hundred thousand dollars, a few smart young scientists, and an established academic laboratory with space to spare. Certainly it is possible to unjam fields that are stuck because no-one wants to invest the time to build the basic tools needed for any meaningful work to take place, as is the case for breaking down glucosepane cross-links in human tissues, or where present relevant research is largely intended for use with comparatively rare genetic diseases, and thus is funded below the levels needed to ensure reliable progress, as is the case for some of the work relevant to working around the contribution of mitochondrial DNA damage to aging.
Which is all to say that grassroots efforts at the level of our Fight Aging! SENS fundraiser are meaningful and important. We light the way and attract later, wealthier donors, and further do actually help to ensure that good research is accomplished with our funds. I'm pleased to say that the community has shown considerable generosity and support, especially in the last week since Giving Tuesday and an offer by Aubrey de Grey to further match donations that day. At present with three weeks to go more than 500 people have pitched in and we are just a little over three thousand dollars short of our goal of $50,000. Thank you to all who have helped!
So if you have friends who are on the fence, or even friends who have never heard of the SENS Research Foundation and efforts in the scientific community to bring an end to pain, suffering, and disease in aging, then now is a good time to reach out.
Can't wait to see the jump in donations next year.
Michael-2,
what's gonna happen next year that will cause a jump in donations?
Well last year it was 15k, this year it is 50k. Next year try for 150k matched 3 to 1? That would be almost half a million.
Some further proof of concept studies would always help. I'm not too sure how far away any of those are.
Maybe next year a campaign in Kickstarter or other crowdfunding site must be tried. That will reach people outside the life extension community.
@Antonio: there's also the fact that journalists "strangely" do not mention SENS when they'd have all reasons to do so. When they act snob, it sure doesn't help the outreach.
@ Reason - probably you should establish two per annum fundraiser campaigns.
One like now (Oct -> Dec) ending around Winter Solstice; and another one six months later (around Summer Solstice).
Probably they should be similar or little bit larger than this one - approx. 200k each.
On the other hand, SENS needs to do their homework as well and start moving into real world their technologies.
Like you said couple times in your posts, it is amazing how much can be done nowadays with relatively modest sums.
So that being said, if SENS will not start showing some results, people will lose interest and donations will become a problem.
Worse than that, all this rejuvenation idea will become smoke and mirrors/snake oil.
With the speed of developments we see nowadays in research, even six months should yield visible results of a research - if that is implemented in some form, things will gain a lot of speed.
For example, I just red that few days ago GE Health licensed CRISPR technologies from Broad Institute - If I recall correct CRISPS technology is about approx. 1 year old. I refer to improved CRISPR.
So a very quick move from lab to real world.
Why SENS cannot take same path and partnership with larger entities?
@Adrian: SENS research is showing results - read the annual reports.
http://sens.org/about/organizational-reports
In terms of big, flashy, worldwide press coverage results, well that is a chicken and egg situation. You need lots of funding to reliably achieve that sort of outcome, and you need results to help get that funding. It is the eternal bootstrap process, just the same for every endeavor. It is worth noting that even the Buck Institute, at ten times the funding of the SENS Research Foundation, isn't rolling out scientific (versus publicity) hits on a reliable once every six months basis.
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/11/the-indeterminate-nature-of-poorly-funded-research.php
Research is actually a pretty terrible partner for advocacy, as the process of research just doesn't conform to a timeline in any way similar to that of the news and attention cycle, even when there is a lot of funding. Nonetheless, we have to do the best we can.
@Adrian: Time spent developing CRISPR/Cas technology is around 30 years, not 1 year! And it's still uncompleted. It can't be applied to humans yet!
The first article about CRISPR was published in 1987 by Ishino et al. They were studying E. Coli genome and didn't know wath CRISPR was used for by the bacteria, and off course, didn't imagine any medical applications for it.
Around 2000-2002 Cas was discovered.
In 2010 there were a huge increase in articles about CRISP/Cas and finally their functions as a bacterial immune system and DNA-cutting technology were discovered and clarified.
That spurred an increase in research, until the first monkeys cloned using CRISPR/Cas were obtaind in 2013.
But we still don't know how to apply the technique to humans.
Biomedical research IS NOT THAT FAST as you say.
Antonio:
So it took 13-15 years before the discovery of CRISPR and the discovery of Cas. Then it was 8-10 years until their functions as a DNA-editing tool were discovered. And after that, just 3 years until it was used to clone monkeys.
Looks like its picking up speed to me. I'm going to be immortal by next year ;)
@ Antonio -
I was referring just to the most recent development of CRISPR (one developed after 2013), the one they call it next generation” CRISPR .
I know bio-tech research is not as fast as we want it. The question is: what can we do as a community of enthusiasts to speed it up, so reverse aging pick up speed and start delivering?
I feel like a modern Agora should be started, where brilliant minds in the field can communicate their ideas and learn from each other.
Also, one side that is not used is the Open Source community.
Foundations like SENS can start developing software packages that speed up a lot their research. Once the software is developed, I'm sure with a good management will help them a lot.
There are couple models in the Open Source community that actually developed extremely well.
Just think about an Open Source package - that process data for reverse aging studies and do simulations - software similar to SETI@home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/) that can be run on idle machines.
A software that is geared research for reverse aging and support SENS and other similar foundations. I'm sure the more computing power SENS has, the better.
I think the most telling thing about this fundraiser is that a small number of people can generate reasonable amounts of money. When fifty thousand dollars equals five hundred people then having a regular base of contributors numbering five or ten thousand coupled with several wealthy philanthropists means we're close to end game in terms of funding.
I think the goal ultimately should focus on the number of contributors rather than the amount raised. The next goal I think should be appealing to five thousand people and then after that, fifty thousand.