As part of the widespread media coverage of the launch of Altos Labs and the rising tide of investment into rejuvenation biotechnology, a recent article in a British daily featured an interview with SENS Research Foundation’s Science Writer Michael Rae on Altos Labs, cellular reprogramming, and its place within the SENS platform of rejuvenation biotechnologies and the push toward a future of indefinite medical maintenance of healthy, youthful life.

SRF is elated at the announcement in Longevity Technology of a fund that will distribute more than $1 billion over a ten year period specifically “to research, institutions and projects advancing healthy human longevity and extending the healthy human lifespan to more than 120 years.”

Few may remember the environment in which SRF began, in which interest in longevity research and significant extension of human life was far outside the mainstream. This financial commitment is another hard-fought victory in shifting attitudes towards fighting aging.

Buck scientists will identify and characterize senescent cells – recognized as a driver of age-related disease – in human ovaries, breast tissue and skeletal muscle. “We are thrilled that the NIH is investing in studying cellular senescence in humans…” said Campisi.

The NIA reports: “Cellular senescence, an aging mechanism in which cells lose normal function, may contribute to a worse response in human cells to COVID-19 and in older mice to a similar coronavirus — but a class of drug known as senolytics decreased adverse responses and increased survival for the mice. The preclinical findings from a study funded in part by NIA were recently published in Science.”

This is also the focus of one of SRF’s projects that is working on selectively removing senescent cells and reversing the damage caused by them to rejuvenate the immune system.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish October 1st as the ‘International Day of Older Persons’ as recorded in Resolution 45/106. The holiday was observed for the first time on October 1st, 1991.

Following this tradition, longevity research activists from around the world call this day and the month of October; International Longevity Day and International Longevity Month.

SENS Research Foundation joins the Mitochondrial Medicine Society and MITOAction.org during the third week of September in raising awareness for the Annual Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week.

Mitochondrial function declines with age, and these dysfunctional mitochondria adversely contribute to several metabolic and neuromuscular diseases. The mitoSENS team is working tirelessly to help discover the science to reverse and/or prevent damage to mitochondrial DNA. 

As reported in the MIT Technology Review, the rejuvenation start-up is recruiting top researchers to work on “unfettered blue-sky research on how cells age and how to reverse that process.” Milner, a billionaire investor and science enthusiast, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are said to be investing in the venture that has so far brought on Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte from the Salk Institute, UCLA professor Steve Horvath, and Nobel Prize winning scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who will chair the scientific advisory board.

At the end of 2020, we invited all our supporters to submit designs for an official SRF mask. As well as being worn by our staff, these masks are now available – while supplies last – to anyone who’d like to support our work to end age-related disease and disability.

At the end of each year, SRF launches our final fundraising campaign – the aptly named End of Year Campaign – to encourage our donors to donate during the most giving time of year. This year, matching funds from Michael Antonov and a team of other supporters helped you to smash through our original goal.