The Methuselah Foundation is one of the more important small non-profits involved in steering the near future course of aging research and human longevity. It is generally the case that the larger non-profits in medical research fund the status quo only, and so it is up to more nimble and driven organizations to make the status quo better - to really change the world, in other words. Organizations like the Methuselah Foundation and its core of dedicated supporters lead the way, change minds, and steer the broader community towards new and better directions more likely to extend healthy lives sooner rather than later.

It is worth remembering that, like the SENS Research Foundation, the Methuselah Foundation grew and established its presence due to the generosity of hundreds of donors of largely modest means. Their support helped to ensure the Foundation's important role in the sweeping changes that have taken place in the field of aging research and its goals over the past decade, shifting the leaders in the field towards open support for treating aging as a medical condition and the goal of extending healthy life spans. In the years since spinning off the SENS Research Foundation, the Methuselah Foundation has focused more on tissue engineering, but that is far from the only research activity funded and promoted by the Foundation staff.

A recent update on the activities of the Methuselah Foundation turned up in my in-box today, and I think many of you will be most interested to see that the Foundation is now funding a biotech startup effort to clear senescent cells and thus remove their contribution to degenerative aging. Senescent cell clearance is on my list as the most likely of the SENS repair-based technologies to be implemented first, even though funding is very limited for this area of research, as (a) there are a range of groups working on the problem or aspects of the problem, and (b) all of the various technologies needed to assemble a viable treatment either exist already or are very close to realization. It is good to see the Methuselah Foundation stepping in to support this field.