The Methuselah Mouse Prize

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Methuselah Foundation
Formation2000; 26 years ago, as the Performance Prize Society
FoundersDavid Gobel
(co-founders Aubrey de Grey and Dane Gobel)
Type501(c)(3)
Focus
Location
Region served
Global
CEO
David Gobel
Websitewww.mfoundation.org

The Methuselah Foundation is an American non-profit organization based in Springfield, Virginia. It has funded life extension research.[1]

History

The organization was incorporated by David Gobel in 2001 as the Performance Prize Society. In 2003, David Gobel, Aubrey de Grey,[2] and Dane Gobel rebranded the organization Methuselah Foundation, named after Methuselah (the grandfather of Noah in the Hebrew Bible whose lifespan was claimed to be 969 years). The new name was introduced at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the American Aging Association, along with an award to Andrej Bartke for his work on mice that lived the equivalent of 180 human years.[3]

The foundation's work includes funding scientific research,[4] as well as incubating and investing in early-stage life science companies.[5]

Projects

Methuselah Funds

The Methuselah Funds (M Fund) was created in 2017 by the Methuselah Foundation to invest in early-stage companies.[5]

NASA Challenge partnerships

In 2016, NASA in partnership with the New Organ Alliance announced the Vascular Tissue Challenge.[6][7] The Vascular Tissue Challenge offered a $500,000 prize awarded to two teams.[8]

In November 2016, in conjunction with the Vascular Tissue Challenge, the New Organ Alliance hosted at the NASA Research Park the Vascular Tissue Challenge Roadmapping Workshop, with funding from the NSF.

In 2021, Methuselah announced a second collaboration with NASA, the Deep Space Food Challenge, which awarded prizes to 18 U.S. teams for food production technology for long-duration space missions.[9][10][11]

Alliance for Longevity Initiatives

The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives organization has funded longevity projects such as bioengineered patient trials and dramatically improved biomedical research models that use engineered human tissue.[12]

New Parts for People

Methuselah Foundation contributed $1 million to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.[13]

3D bioprinter grants

In 2013, Methuselah Foundation began a partnership with Organovo to fund the use of their 3D bioprinters at academic research centers for biomedical research.[14] The foundation committed "at least $500,000 in direct funding for research projects across several institutions."[15] The first recipients were Yale School of Medicine,[16] UCSF School of Medicine,[17] and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.[18]

Bowhead whale genome

In 2015, with funding from the Methuselah Foundation and Life Extension Foundation, the bowhead whale genome was sequenced by João Pedro de Magalhães and his team at the University of Liverpool.[19] The bowhead whale is possibly the longest-lived mammal, capable of living over 200 years.[20] The genome project was undertaken to learn more about the mammal's mechanisms for longevity and resistance to age-related diseases, which are unknown.[20] An assembly of the bowhead whale genome has been made available online.[21]

New Organ Alliance

The Methuselah Foundation sponsored the New Organ Alliance, an initiative to alleviate organ donation shortages.[22][23] In 2013, the foundation announced the New Organ Liver Prize, a $1,000,000 award to the first team that can create a bioengineered or regenerative liver therapy.[24][25]

New Organ Alliance partnered with the Organ Preservation Alliance[26] and was funded through the National Science Foundation[27] and Methuselah Foundation.[28] and "Bioengineering Priorities on a Path to Ending Organ Shortage".[29]

In 2016, NASA and the New Organ Alliance announced the Vascular Tissue Challenge.[6][7][30][31] The Vascular Tissue Challenge offers a $500,000 prize "to be divided among the first three teams that successfully create thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment."[32]

In November 2016, with the Vascular Tissue Challenge, the New Organ Alliance hosted the Vascular Tissue Challenge Roadmapping Workshop, with funding from the NSF.[33][34]

Organ Preservation Alliance

In 2013, Methuselah collaborated with the Organ Preservation Alliance.[2][35][36][37]

Supercentenarian Research Foundation

In 2006, Methuselah contributed capital and fiscal sponsorship to launch the Supercentenarian Research Foundation (SRF) to study supercentenarians (people over 110 years of age).[2][38][39][40]

SENS Research Foundation

From 2003 to 2009,[2] Methuselah Foundation served as the backbone organization for the strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS) program, a long-term research framework developed by Aubrey de Grey.[41] The SENS program aimed to prevent or reverse seven forms of molecular or cellular damage associated with aging.[42]

During that time, de Grey and David Gobel established SENS-related research programs on human bioremedial biology[43] at Rice University and Arizona State University.[4] The programs used environmental remediation principles directed at reversing "pollution" in human cells.[44] Methuselah sponsored a series of SENS-focused roundtables and conferences.[45]

Under de Grey's leadership, SENS spun out from Methuselah as the SENS Research Foundation in 2009.[2]

Monetary support

In 2004, the Methuselah Foundation was funded by 300 donors.[46] In 2015, the foundation created a monument to the 300 donors from this initiative at St. Thomas Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.[47]

On September 16, 2006, Peter Thiel announced that he was pledging $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation and the SENS programs.[48]

In 2007, Justin Bonomo, a professional poker player, pledged 5% of his tournament winnings to SENS research.[49][50]

In January 2018, the anonymous principal of the Pineapple Fund donated $1 million to the Methuselah Foundation,[51] in addition to $2 million donated to SENS Research Foundation.[52]

On May 12, 2021, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of ethereum, made a series of donations to the foundation.[53][54]

References

  1. Page "About Us" on the site of Methuselah Foundation (Retrieved 2021-04-06)
  2. "Progress in SENS Rejuvenation Research Over the Past 15 Years". Fight Aging!. 2017-06-30.
  3. Gobel, D. (2004-07-01). "Methuselah Foundation". Rejuvenation Research. 7 (2): 154–159. doi:10.1089/1549168041553035. ISSN 1549-1684. PMID 15312303.
  4. Watkins, Jenn (2009-01-16). "Researchers seek to create 'fountain of youth'".
  5. "Methuselah Foundation Launches Methuselah Fund". Fight Aging!. 2017-03-22.
  6. Weitering, Hanneke (2016-06-23). "NASA Seeks Lab-Grown Tissue for Space-Radiation Studies". Space.com.
  7. Giges, Nancy S. (2016-10-30). "Growing Human Organs in Space". ASME.org.
  8. Teams Engineer Complex Human Tissues, Win Top Prizes in NASA Challenge
  9. "NASA Announces Winners of Deep Space Food Challenge". NASA. Archived from the original on 2023-05-24.
  10. Deep Space Food Challenge: NASA Offers $1 Million for Innovative Systems to Feed Tomorrow’s Astronauts
  11. Deep Space Food Challenge
  12. Why A4LI?
  13. Methuselah Foundation Gives Albert Einstein College of Medicine $1 Million to Develop Engineered Brain Tissue
  14. Kaelin, Brooke (2013-08-01). "Organovo and Methuselah Foundation Announce Funding of Bioprinting Research". 3D Printer World. Archived from the original on 2018-12-31. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  15. "Press Release | Investors | Organovo". Organovo. 2013-07-24.
  16. Milkert, Heidi (2014-12-03). "Organovo and Yale Announce Collaboration on 3D Bioprinting for Organ Transplantion | 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing". 3DPrint.com.
  17. Connors, Tarcy (2016-06-13). "Organovo, UCSF to Collaborate to Develop 3-D Bioprinted Tissue". San Diego Business Journal.
  18. Florance, Adam (2017-01-25). "Bioprinted kidneys". LabOnline.
  19. Feltman, Rachel (2015-01-06). "Researchers hope this whale's genes will help reverse human aging". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  20. Keane, Michael; et al. (2015-01-06). "Insights into the Evolution of Longevity from the Bowhead Whale Genome". Cell Reports. 10 (1): 112–122. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2014.12.008. ISSN 2211-1247. PMC 4536333. PMID 25565328.
  21. "The Bowhead Whale Genome Resource". www.bowhead-whale.org. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
  22. "New Organ Alliance". neworgan.org. Archived from the original on 2016-04-01. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  23. Dvorsky, George (2015-02-02). "How We'll Finally Put An End To Organ Donation Shortages". io9.
  24. "New Organ Liver Prize". neworgan.org. Archived from the original on 2017-05-11. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  25. Diep, Francie (2013-12-19). "Foundation Offers $1 Million Prize For A Bioengineered Liver". Popular Science.
  26. "Solving Organ Shortage through Organ Banking and Bioengineering" (PDF). Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  27. "NSF Award Search: Award #1759748 – Bioengineering of Organs Road-Map Summit". nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  28. Giwa, Sebastian; et al. (June 7, 2017). "The promise of organ and tissue preservation to transform medicine". Nature Biotechnology. 35 (6): 530–542. doi:10.1038/nbt.3889. ISSN 1546-1696. PMC 5724041. PMID 28591112.
  29. Tsukamoto, Ann; et al. (January 5, 2016). "Challenging Regeneration to Transform Medicine". Stem Cells Translational Medicine. 5 (1): 1–7. doi:10.5966/sctm.2015-0180. ISSN 2157-6564. PMC 4704880. PMID 26607174.
  30. Kim, Joseph J.; Hou, Luqia; Huang, Ngan F. (2016-09-01). "Vascularization of Three-Dimensional Engineered Tissues for Regenerative Medicine Applications". Acta Biomaterialia. 41: 17–26. doi:10.1016/j.actbio.2016.06.001. ISSN 1742-7061. PMC 4969172. PMID 27262741.
  31. Visconti, Richard P; Kasyanov, Vladimir; Gentile, Carmine; Zhang, Jing; Markwald, Roger R; Mironov, Vladimir (March 2010). "Towards organ printing: engineering an intra-organ branched vascular tree". Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy. 10 (3): 409–420. doi:10.1517/14712590903563352. ISSN 1471-2598. PMC 4580374. PMID 20132061.
  32. Harbaugh, Jennifer (2016-06-06). "NASA's Centennial Challenges: Vascular Tissue Challenge". NASA. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  33. "New Organ – VTC Workshop". neworgan.org. Archived from the original on 2017-03-05. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  34. "NSF Award Search: Award #1642055 – Vascular Tissue Road-mapping Workshop & Micro-gravity Impact Roundtable". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  35. www.organpreservationalliance.org – site of the Organ Preservation Alliance
  36. Scudellari, Megan (2015-03-04). "U.S. Funds Efforts to Freeze Human Organs for Long-Term Storage". Scientific American.
  37. "The Future of Organ Banking". The Alliance of Advanced BioMedical Engineering. 2017-07-31.
  38. Page "Mission Statement" on the site of Supercentenarian Research Foundation
  39. Schneck, Andrea (2010-03-04). "Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine performs autopsy on 115-year-old woman to aid research". Daily Bruin.
  40. Leslie, Mitch (2008-09-26). "Searching for the Secrets of the Super Old". Science. 321 (5897): 1764–1765. doi:10.1126/science.321.5897.1764. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 18818335. S2CID 8441658.
  41. de Grey, Aubrey D. N. J.; Ames, Bruce N.; Andersen, Julie K.; Bartke, Andrzej; Campisi, Judith; Heward, Christopher B.; McCarter, Roger J. M.; Stock, Gregory (April 2002). "Time to talk SENS: critiquing the immutability of human aging". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 959 (1): 452–462, discussion 463–465. Bibcode:2002NYASA.959..452G. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2002.tb02115.x. ISSN 0077-8923. PMID 11976218. S2CID 1940908.
  42. "A Reimagined Research Strategy for Aging". SENS Research Foundation. 2012-11-18. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
  43. Page "About Us" on the site of Methuselah Fund (Retrieved 2021-04-08)
  44. Rittmann, Bruce E.; Schloendorn, John (2007-08-20). "Engineering Away Lysosomal Junk: Medical Bioremediation". Rejuvenation Research. 10 (3): 359–366. doi:10.1089/rej.2007.0594. ISSN 1549-1684. PMID 17708688.
  45. "SENS Conferences". SENS Research Foundation. 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  46. "The Methuselah 300". www.mfoundation.org. Archived from the original on 2018-03-03. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  47. "The Methuselah 300 Monument is Unveiled". Fight Aging!. 2015-11-24. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  48. Davidson, Keay (2006-09-18). "BAY AREA / Entrepreneur backs research on anti-aging / Scientist says humans could live indefinitely". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  49. "The Redemption of ZeeJustin". ESPN.com. 2007-02-22. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  50. "Please Welcome the Newest Members of The Three Hundred". Methuselah Foundation Blog. Methuselah Foundation. 2007-01-18. Archived from the original on 2009-03-03. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
  51. "The Pineapple Fund Donates Millions to the Organ Preservation Alliance and Methuselah Foundation". Fight Aging!. 2018-01-29. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  52. "Blockchain.com Explorer | BTC | ETH | BCH". www.blockchain.com.
  53. "Ethereum Creator, Vitalik Buterin, Donates Over $1B to India COVID Relief". TheStreet. 12 May 2021. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  54. "Vitalik Buterin Donates More than $2 Million to the Methuselah Foundation". Fight Aging!. 17 May 2021. Retrieved 28 May 2021.