The Methuselah Foundation…inception to 2014…

Methuselah Mouse Prize (Mprize)

After only two years in existence, the Methuselah Foundation introduced the world’s first longevity prize — the Mprize. The prize has a two-fold purpose. One purpose is to reward scientific advances. The other is to increase acceptance of efforts to increase human “healthspan” — years of healthy life — and lifespan.

When the Methuselah Foundation came into existence, such efforts were viewed as folly, even immoral by some. And conducting research to prevent or reverse aging was viewed by many as career suicide.

The Mprize has helped change that. Investment in efforts to increase human healthspan and lifespan has gone from very little to well over a billion dollars.

A cash prize for breaking the world record for the oldest-ever mouse was first awarded to a team led by Dr. Andrzej Bartke at Southern Illinois University. Another cash prize for the most successful approach to rejuvenating the health of old mice was first awarded to Dr. Stephen Spindler of the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Z. Dave Sharp of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio received the first award for extending the lifespan of already aged mice in 2009.

Methuselah Fund (M Fund)

In anticipation of changing attitudes about preventing/reversing aging the Methuselah Foundation also created the M Fund. The M Fund invests donations in startups that advance the Foundation’s mission. “The M Fund is strategically positioned to make audacious bets in the longevity biotech startup world,” says Managing Director, Sergio Ruiz. “We have several partners and a large investor network of mission-oriented individuals who want to see medical breakthroughs move from the academic research setting into the clinic. We know that the best way to accelerate the advent of life-saving and life-improving products and interventions is to incubate mission-driven teams and help them become companies with a focus on improving patients’ lives.” The M Fund invests private and institutional capital in companies that can tackle the following mission-oriented goals:

• get rid of the crud…waste and damaged/destructive cells and structures,

• restore compromised circulation,

• replace degenerated/damaged body parts…from vasculature to organs to bones,

• debug the genetic code…from mutations to faulty replication,

• replenish supplies…with stem cells and immune support, and

• rejuvenate senses and physical competence.

SENS Research Foundation (SENSRF)

The SENSRF was spun out from the Methuselah Foundation in 2009, with ongoing support. The SENSRF is based on a long-term research framework — Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) — designed by de Grey to develop regenerative therapies that repair seven major classes of cellular and molecular damage associated with aging. SENS-related research programs have been established at Arizona State University, Rice University, and the University of Cambridge.

SENSRF’s Undoing Aging Conference

The Methuselah Foundation sponsored, and later funded, six SENS-focused events at the University of Cambridge from 2003 through 2009. These events became the leading series of conferences dedicated to using regenerative therapies to prevent/reverse aging. The events played a central role in building an international network of researchers and programs. The series continues as the SENSRF’s Undoing Aging Conference.

The 300

Inspired by the 300 Spartans who held the pass at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., Gobel created The 300. The 300 is a group of 300 individuals pledging $25,000 each (7.5M) to help Methuselah Foundation on its mission.

SENS Challenge

The Methuselah Foundation has had its share of detractors. In 2005 MIT Technology Review published a pejorative profile of de Grey and SENS. The profile was accompanied by a column written by Jason Pontin, editor in chief, in which Pontin called de Grey a “troll.” This series of events prompted Gobel to propose a challenge to Pontin, which he accepted. Per the terms of the challenge, MIT and Methuselah each pledged to pay $10,000 to any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that SENS “is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate.” Three qualifying submissions were reviewed by a distinguished group of judges — Rodney Brooks, Anita Goel, Vikram Kumar, Nathan Myhrvold, and J. Craig Venter. In a summary written by Pontin, himself, the unanimous view was that no submission met the “criterion of the challenge and disproved SENS.”

Supercentenarian Research Foundation (SRF)

In 2006 Methuselah contributed $100,000 and direction to launch SRF with Dr. L. Stephen Coles and Dr. Elliot Bergman. The focus of SRF is the cause of death in supercentenarians (i.e., people aged at least 110 years). Working with Robert Young, who is a gerontology consultant and researcher known for validating supercentenarians, Coles and Dr. Stanley Primer determined that the cause of death is senile systemic amyloidosis (SSA). As humans age, a transport protein known as transthyretin begins to unravel and stick to the inside of blood vessels. Blood flow is restricted, and heart failure results.

In 2008 de Grey and Michael Rae published Ending Aging. The book was well-received. With publication of the book, de Grey’s public advocacy (e.g., TEDGlobal in 2005) and the Foundation’s Mprize, researchers, and donors, Methuselah Foundation became the first charity to mobilize the movement to undo aging. The Foundation built and defended the scientific case for approaching age-related damage as an engineering and cultural problem. By changing the conversation, the Foundation helped make longevity research a fundable area.

Organovo

In 2009 the Methuselah Foundation became the first outside investor in Organovo. Organovo designs and creates 3-D human tissues that — for the first time — enable drugs to be tested before administration to a person. In the future, these tissues will be implanted into the body to repair/replace damaged/diseased tissues.

Organovo has introduced the first architecturally correct human liver and kidney assays. These assays have the potential to improve drug development dramatically — by reducing the cost of toxicology testing and eliminating the need for animal testing.

In 2013 the Methuselah Foundation launched a $500,000 partnership with Organovo to place their 3-D printers in research labs as a springboard to create bio-printed tissues for surgical transplantation. The printers are currently in place at Yale School of Medicine (Dr. John Geibel), UCSF School of Medicine (Dr. Edward Hsiao), and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (Dr. Melissa Little).

Silverstone Solutions

In 2010 the Methuselah Foundation invested in Silverstone Solutions. Founded by David Jacobs and acquired by BiologicTx in 2013, Silverstone Solutions has turned its kidney-pair-matching software, MatchGrid, into a cloud-based service. Hospitals and transplant organizations are using MatchGrid to match living organ donors with patients who have willing but incompatible donors. As a result, more patients can receive a living donor kidney, instead of waiting 5–10 years for a cadaver organ.

New Organ Alliance (NOA)

Conceived by Gobel, the NOA was launched in 2011. A collective initiative of key partnerships and prizes advancing the bioengineering and banking of tissues and organs, the NOA is at the center of coordinating greater efforts to industrialize “new parts for people.” As Gobel sees it, our replacement organs come from cadavers or ill-matched living donors, and most people in need don’t even have a chance of receiving a replacement organ from either source.

New Organ Liver Prize

Methuselah Foundation created the world’s first organ bioengineering prize — the New Organ Liver Prize — in partnership with the Institute of Competition Sciences in 2013. An award of $1M will be given to the first team to create a regenerative/bioengineered solution for keeping a large animal alive for 90 days without innate liver function. Currently, there are 13 active teams working on this objective. The New Organ Liver Prize is strongly endorsed by The Founding Fellows of the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS).

Gerontology Research Group Grant

In 2013 the Methuselah Foundation awarded a grant to Dr. L. Stephen Coles, co-founder and executive director of the Gerontology Research Group and noted researcher on supercentenarians (i.e., people aged at least 110 years). The grant supported research of new methods of personalized gene sequencing and pre-testing of potential chemotherapy courses in immunodeficient mouse models.

Organ Preservation Alliance (OPA)

In 2014 the Methuselah Foundation sponsored and contributed to the OPA. OPA is a charity working to accelerate organ banking. The OPA organized the first Organ Banking Summit, facilitated events in Washington, DC, and co-created the first Organ and Tissue Preservation Community of Practice with the American Society of Transplantation. The OPA also contributed to new grant programs from the Department of Defense for organ preservation research. Recently, they hosted the Organ Banking Summit at Harvard Medical School and received $2M from the Pineapple Fund.

National Institute on Aging Intervention Testing Program (NIAITP)

An award of $10,000 was given to Dr. Huber Warner in 2014 for founding the NIAITP. The program is a gold-standard assessment of treatments attempting to slow aging in mice.

And, with all of that and more going on, the Methuselah Foundation turned its focus to Oisín Biotechnologies.