SENS Research Foundation

The SENS Research Foundation is a non-profit organization that does research programs and public relations work for the application of regenerative medicine to aging. It was founded in 2009, located in Mountain View, California, USA. The organization publishes its reports annually.[1][2][3][4]

SENS Research Foundation
FoundedMarch 2009 (2009-03)
FounderAubrey de Grey, Jeff Hall, Michael Kope, Sarah Marr, Kevin Perrott
Type501(c)(3)
FocusRejuvenation
Location
  • Mountain View, California, United States
Area served
Global
MethodSENS
Key people
Aubrey de Grey, Kevin Dewalt, Jeff Hall, Michael Kope, Barbara J. Logan, Sarah Marr, Kevin Perrott
Websitewww.sens.org

History

Before the foundation was founded in March 2009, the SENS research program was mainly pursued by the Methuselah Foundation, co-founded by Aubrey de Grey and David Gobel.

When the SENS rejuvenation approach was announced in the 2000s, while some biogerontologists supported the SENS program, many contended that the ultimate goals of de Grey's programme were too speculative given the state of technology and referred to it as "fantasy rather than science".[5][6] By mid-2010s, the rejuvenation approach gained traction with multiple startup companies created from SENS research findings. In 2021 Michael Greve pledged another €300 million for rejuvenation biotechnology startup companies.[7][8] In 2021, Underdog Pharmaceuticals, a startup company spun out from a research program at SENS Research Foundation, was awarded an Innovation Passport from the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which intends to streamline the approval program of promising therapies.[9] In August 2021, Aubrey de Grey was suspended from the foundation.[10] The CEO of the SENS Research Foundation, Jim O’Neill left in the preceding July, at the same time de Grey was suspended.[10]

Goals

According to the organization site, its goal is to "help build the industry that will cure the diseases of aging". It funds research and uses outreach and education in order to expedite the various regenerative medicine research programs that go together to make the SENS project. The foundation also conducts its own student program SRF Education.[11]

Research
Main article: Strategies for engineered negligible senescence

Research programs

The SENS Research Foundation (SRF) pursues research projects that correspond to the seven categories of cellular damage due to aging:

Aging Damage Research Program Description and related spin-off companies
Cell loss and cell atrophy RepleniSENS
Division-obsessed cells OncoSENS
  • OncoSENS's solution is to preemptively remove the genes for the telomere-lengthening machinery
  • OncoSenX's (spinout from Oisin Biotechnologies, which is a SENS seed-funded startup)[14] suicide gene therapy results in 75-90% reduction in tumor in mice[15][16]
Death-resistant cells ApoptoSENS
  • Oisin Biotechnologies (SENS seed-funded startup) has a precise targeting technology, which is based on senescent cells' DNA expression[14]
Mitochondrial mutations MitoSENS
  • Allotopic expression of 13 proteins[17]
  • Initial proof of concept using ATP8 and ATP6 genes was successful. Research was published in the peer-reviewed Nucleic Acids Research journal[18]
  • The mitochondrial transplantation project aims to take advantage of the body's natural process of mitochondrial exchange for healthy mitochondrial transfusion.[19]
Intracellular waste products LysoSENS
  • Ichor Therapeutics is developing repair therapy for Macular degeneration[20]
  • Underdog Pharmaceuticals received an Innovation Passport, an accelerated regulatory pathway from the UK government for promising therapies, for a small molecule drug to treat atherosclerosis by clearing arterial plaques.[21] Underdog and SRF received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to pursue this research further.[22]
Extracellular waste products AmyloSENS
  • The Degradation of Tau Aggregates project seeks to remove aggregated tau proteins, which are part of age-related cognitive decline, Alzheimer's, and other tauopathies.[23]
Extracellular matrix stiffening GlycoSENS
  • Revel Pharmaceuticals is developing therapeutics that can cleave Advanced glycation end-product crosslinks[24]

Research collaboration

In addition to research undertaken in-house at the Research Center in Mountain View, SRF has also taken part in and/or selectively funded extramural research at various other institutions, including Yale University, Harvard University, Cambridge University, University of Texas, Rice University, and University of Arizona.[1]

Research advisory board

The SENS Research Foundation's research advisory board includes Pedro J. J. Alvarez, Anthony Atala, George Church, Judith Campisi, William A. Haseltine, Brian K. Kennedy, Jeanne Loring, María Blasco Marhuenda, Bruce Rittmann, Nadia Rosenthal, Rudolph E. Tanzi, Jan Vijg, Michael D. West, and Vladimir Skulachev.[25]

Funding source

SRF funding in 2019[4]

Owing to the close relationship between SENS Foundation and Methuselah Foundation and their common activities, during reading articles and public reports there are sometimes misunderstanding about their budgets, directions and amounts of donations which can be distributed between these organizations for various purposes.

On December 9, 2010, Jason Hope, an entrepreneur based in Scottsdale, AZ, pledged a $500,000 donation.[26]

In 2011, Aubrey de Grey inherited $16.5 million on the death of his mother. Of this he assigned $13 million to fund SENS research, which by 2013 had the effect of roughly doubling the SRF yearly budget to $4 million.[27]

According SRF annual reports,

  • in 2017 its income was $7,871,530 and expenses $3,915,682 ($2,146,412 on research, $920,533 on education, $172,380 on outreach, $676,534 on administration).[2]
  • in 2018 - unclear, the annual report doesn't contain this information.[3]
  • in 2019 its income was $2,683,611 and expenses $4,361,258 ($2,331,364 on research, $859,222 on education, $642,056 on outreach, $582,616 on administration).[4]

The Pineapple Fund donated $2 million to SENS in 2017–18,[28][29] that's in addition to $1 million donated to Methuselah Foundation.[30]

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated $2.4 million in 2018.[2][31][32][33] Then in 2020 Vitalik Buterin together with Sam Bankman-Fried and Haseeb Qureshi donated a total of $150,000 to SENS Research Foundation to combat aging and aging-related diseases at the choice of users of Twitter as a result of open voting.[34]

In 2020, Oculus cofounder Michael Antonov donated $1 million, of which $600,000 was a matching donation.[35][36]

See also

References
  1. "SENS Research Foundation 2011 Annual Report" (PDF).
  2. "SENS Research Foundation 2018 Annual Report" (PDF).
  3. "SENS Research Foundation 2019 Annual Report" (PDF).
  4. "SENS Research Foundation 2020 Annual Report" (PDF).
  5. Warner H; Anderson J; Austad S; et al. (November 2005). "Science fact and the SENS agenda. What can we reasonably expect from ageing research?". EMBO Reports. 6 (11): 1006–8. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400555. PMC 1371037. PMID 16264422.
  6. Holliday R (April 2009). "The extreme arrogance of anti-aging medicine". Biogerontology. 10 (2): 223–8. doi:10.1007/s10522-008-9170-6. PMID 18726707. S2CID 764136.
  7. Michael Greve Announces a New €300 Million Fund for Investment in Rejuvenation Biotechnology Startups
  8. Michael Greve, founder of Forever Healthy, commits €300 million to advance rejuvenation startups
  9. "Kizoo portfolio company Underdog awarded 'Innovation Passport' by UK Regulators". 8 September 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-09-08.
  10. "Anti-aging foundation's CEO left amid probe of Aubrey de Grey". STAT. 2021-08-13. Retrieved 2021-08-15.
  11. "About SENS Research Foundation". Official SENS site. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  12. "RepleniSENS:Replacing Lost Cells". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
  13. "Functional Neuron Replacement to Rejuvenate the Neocortex". 25 March 2019.
  14. "Plasmid based senolytics from Oisín Biotechnologies". Lifespan.io. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  15. "Systemic Senolysis in Naturally Aged Mice". YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. Dr. John Lewis (2018-10-11). "Selective Ablation of Senescent and Malignant Cells using Apoptotic Gene Therapy" (lecture). University of Alberta.
  17. "MitoSENS: Preventing Damage from Mitochondrial Mutations". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
  18. Boominathan, Amutha; et al. (2016-09-04). "Stable nuclear expression of ATP8 and ATP6 genes rescues a mtDNA Complex V null mutant". Nucleic Acids Research. 44 (19): 9342–9357. doi:10.1093/nar/gkw756. PMC 5100594. PMID 27596602.
  19. "Engineering New Mitochondrial Genes to Restore Mitochondrial Function (MitoSENS)". 15 June 2021.
  20. "Fight Aging! Invests in Ichor Therapeutics to Support Development of a SENS Damage Repair Therapy for Macular Degeneration". Fight Aging!. 2016-08-15.
  21. "Kizoo portfolio company Underdog awarded 'Innovation Passport' by UK Regulators". 8 September 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-09-08.
  22. "SENS Research Foundation & Underdog Pharmaceuticals jointly awarded $252,000 NIA research grant". 9 December 2021.
  23. "Catalyzing Degradation of Tau Aggregates". 16 June 2021.
  24. "Revel Pharmaceuticals Finally Seed Funded to Develop Glucosepane Cross-Link Breakers". Fight Aging!. 2020-01-07.
  25. SENS Research Foundation Research Advisory Board
  26. "Internet Entrepreneur Jason Hope Pledges A Donation To SENS Foundation". December 9, 2010. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  27. Ben Best (2013) "Interview with Aubrey de Grey, PhD". Life Extension Magazine.
  28. Bitcoin Transaction 10dd3b4bb1…
  29. Bitcoin Transaction f0aa1cc5bc…
  30. "The Pineapple Fund Donates Millions to the Organ Preservation Alliance and Methuselah Foundation". Fight Aging!. 2018-01-29.
  31. "SENS Research Foundation Receives $2.4 Million Ethereum Donation From Vitalik Buterin". SENS Research Foundation. 2018-02-02.
  32. Elena, Milova (March 20, 2018). "Vitalik Buterin: The Best Thing to Donate Money to is The Fight Against Aging". LIFE EXTENSION ADVOCACY FOUNDATION. Archived from the original on 2018-03-22. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  33. Анна ДОБРЮХА (2018-03-20). ""Король Эфириума" Виталик Бутерин: лучшее, на что стоит жертвовать деньги — это борьба со старением" [«King of Ethereum» Vitalik Buterin: the best thing to donate money for is the fight against aging] (in Russian). Komsomolskaya Pravda.
  34. "Effective Altruism: Giving in Crypto". 2020-12-17.
  35. 2020 End of Year Fundraiser
  36. Michael Antonov Foundation: SENS Research Foundation
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