Some of you may remember Betterhumans as one of a number of transhumanist community websites from years back, providing news and advocacy in service of efforts to improve the human condition. Extending healthy lifespan by engineering practical rejuvenation therapies has always been a core transhumanist goal. In one of the more interesting second acts in our community, the Betterhumans name is now hanging on the door of a medical research and development non-profit. This organization runs a supercentenarian study, and is now working on trials of senolytic therapies, starting with the dasatinib and quercetin combination that was first used in mice a few years ago. This is something that I would definitely like to see more of in our community. All of the pieces of the puzzle exist for people who want to work at assembling responsible, transparent, small human trials for the first candidate senolytic drugs. The drugs cost little, the animal studies are compelling, so why wait?

Betterhumans has a long history in the field of transhumanism. It was started as an educational website in mid-2001 and evolved to become a popular website presenting ideas and news about exponential technologies. It ceased operating as a website around late 2008, when h+ Magazine took over its functions. This new iteration of Betterhumans is the most aggressive yet. We will shortly be putting out new information about how ordinary people can modify their diet and lifestyle to take advantage of some of the latest findings in scientific research. Our research team is focused on bringing cutting-edge scientific discoveries from the lab to the clinic, so that humanity can take advantage of these breakthroughs in a safe and inexpensive manner, as quickly as possible.

Operating as a Florida non-profit corporation, the short-term goals of Betterhumans are extending healthy maximum human lifespan and greatly reducing the risk of disease. All discoveries will be offered under a Creative Commons Public Patent License, or equivalent. In 2015, Betterhumans received funding from the Methuselah Foundation to carry out stem cell research and gene-editing experiments, with the express intention of delaying aging and rejuvenating vital organs.

We intend to pursue many small scale human pilot studies to test the safety and efficacy of various FDA-approved drugs and therapies thought to have anti-aging effects. We will publish all results so that other researchers, physicians, and patients can have information which may aid their efforts. The question seeking to be answered by this Phase 0 pilot study is whether the senolytic compounds dasatinib and quercetin will significantly eliminate senescent cells contained in the muscle and fat tissue of elderly individuals who have metabolic syndrome and/or osteoarthritis, and will reduce levels of systemic inflammation, insulin resistance, improve their immunological responses, and in those having osteoarthritis, reverse the progression of this disease.