SENS Research Foundation

SENS Research Foundation
Founded March 2009
Founder Aubrey de Grey, Jeff Hall, Michael Kope, Sarah Marr, Kevin Perrott
Focus Regenerative Medicine
Location
Area served
Global
Method SENS
Key people
 Aubrey de Grey, Kevin Dewalt, Jeff Hall, Michael Kope, Barbara J. Logan, Sarah Marr, Kevin Perrott
Slogan Reimagine Aging
Website www.sens.org

The SENS Research Foundation (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence Research Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization co-founded by Michael Kope, Aubrey de Grey, Jeff Hall, Sarah Marr and Kevin Perrott, which is based in Mountain View, California, United States. Its activities include research programs and public relations work for the application of regenerative medicine to aging. Before the Foundation was launched in March 2009, the SENS research program was mainly pursued by the Methuselah Foundation, co-founded by Aubrey de Grey and David Gobel.

Goals

The foundation's stated goal is to "transform the way the world researches and treats age-related disease." It advocates the 'SENS' approach, which it describes as "the repair of living cells and extracellular material in situ," an approach which it contrasts with geriatric medicine's focus on specific diseases and infirmities, and biogerontology's focus on intervention in metabolic processes. 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.

Research

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]

The SENS Research Foundation pursues research strands which correspond to seven categories of cellular damage which accumulate with age: accumulated side effects of metabolism which are eventually fatal.[2]

Seven types of aging damage and SENS research strands:
  1. Cell loss and cell atrophy — Stem cells and tissue engineering [3]
  2. Nuclear [epi]mutations — WILT, short for "Whole-body Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres" [4]
  3. Mitochondrial mutations — Allotopic expression of 13 proteins[5] (Backup storage of mitochondrial DNA, in case of damage a copy can be found on the cell's nucleus, needed to replicate proteins used for cellular energy production)[6]
  4. Death-resistant cells — Targeted removal [7]
  5. Extracellular crosslinks — AGE-breaking molecules and tissue engineering [8] (Advanced Glycation End products, refers to the binding of glucose, or sugar, to protein, which as a result becomes stiffer and more likely to be damaged and subjected to premature ageing)
  6. Extracellular aggregates — Stimulating of the immune system to clear out the aggregates [9]
  7. Intracellular aggregates — Equipping the lysosome with enzymes capable of degrading the aggregates [10]

SENS Research Foundation has at least one project underway in each of its seven research themes.[9]

Outreach and education

SRF reaches out to policy makers, potential donors, researchers and volunteers through conferences and public events, most notably the biennial SENS Conferences held at Queens' College, Cambridge, which started in 2003, with the sixth conference taking place in 2013. The abstracts from the 2013 conference were published in Rejuvenation Research.[11]

In 2014, SRF hosted the inaugural Rejuvenation Biotechnology conference in Santa Clara, CA, with George M. Church as the keynote speaker.[12]

Donors and volunteers

On September 16, 2006, Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of the online payments system PayPal, announced that he is pledging $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation "to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging" (SENS research).[13] Justin Bonomo, professional poker player, has pledged 5% of his tournament winnings for SENS research.[14] On December 9, 2010, Jason Hope,[15] entrepreneur based in Scottsdale, AZ, pledged $500,000 donation.

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 SENS Research Foundation's yearly budget to $4 million.[16]

In 2014 the foundation had income of $1,831,830 and expenses of $5,157,451.[17]

References

  1. ↑ "2011 Research report" (PDF). September 18, 2006.
  2. ↑ de Grey, Aubrey; Rae, Michael (September 2007). Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. p. 416. ISBN 0-312-36706-6.
  3. ↑ "RepleniSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  4. ↑ "OncoSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  5. ↑ "MitoSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  6. ↑ http://www.sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research/mitochondrial-mutations
  7. ↑ "ApoptoSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  8. ↑ "GlycoSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  9. 1 2 "AmyloSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  10. ↑ "LysoSENS". SENS Research Foundation. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  11. ↑ "Sponsors of SENS6". Rejuvenation Research. 16: S1–S47. 2013. doi:10.1089/rej.2013.16.sens6abs.
  12. ↑ http://sens.org/outreach/conferences/rejuvenation-biotechnology-conference-2014/event-program-and-speaker-faculty
  13. ↑ Davidson, Keay (September 18, 2006). "BAY AREA — Entrepreneur backs research on anti-aging — Scientist says humans could live indefinitely". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
  14. ↑ "Please Welcome the Newest Members of The Three Hundred". Methuselah Foundation Blog. Methuselah Foundation. January 18, 2007. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
  15. ↑ "Jason Hope". Internet Entrepreneur Pledges A Donation To SENS Foundation - JasonHope.com. December 9, 2010.
  16. ↑ Ben Best (2013) "Interview with Aubrey de Grey, PhD". Life Extension Magazine.
  17. ↑ "SENS Research Foundation 2015 Annual Report" (PDF).
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