SENS Foundation

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SENS Research Foundation
legal form
founding 2009
Seat Mountain View , California
management Aubrey de Gray , Michael Kope, Jerri Barrett
Website www.sens.org

The SENS Research Foundation ( Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence Research Foundation) is a non-profit organization founded by Michael Kope, Aubrey de Gray , Jeff Hall, Sarah Marr, and Kevin Perrott and headquartered in Mountain View , California Has.

Her work includes scientific research and public advocacy for the use of regenerative medicine to eradicate diseases of the elderly, as approximately 58 million people die worldwide each year , according to the World Health Organization ; about 160,000 people per day, of whom about 100,000 die from age-related diseases.

Before the organization was founded in March 2009, its goals were pursued by the Methuselah Foundation . This is still active and sponsored and administered the Methuselah Mouse Prize to stimulate research in the field of rejuvenation.

Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence - SENS

Aubrey de Gray develops theories about human aging, which, like a disease, he traces back to unfavorable biochemical processes that can be stopped or reversed through targeted manipulation. The method proposed by him, which he describes as strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS for short) , which he describes as strategies for fighting aging / aging diseases , is based on seven of points of attack propagated to him.

Over the life span, gradually increasing changes in the body were identified as points of attack, which, according to rational considerations and preliminary experimental findings, can be considered a potential cause of aging:

  1. Nuclear DNA mutations / epimutation
  2. Mitochondrial mutations
  3. Intracellular waste products
  4. Extracellular waste products
  5. Protein chaining
  6. Superfluous cells
  7. Lost tissue

As is the case in such an early stage of research into many diseases, it is not yet entirely clear whether the observed changes really function as primary causes, are secondary events or actually develop independently of the disease process.

In principle, it is suggested to subsequently eliminate damage caused by aging instead of trying preventively to establish a metabolism that is as harmless as possible. On the one hand for organizational reasons: Since “aging in itself” is not recognized as a disease, clinical studies would not be approved by the regulatory authorities. In addition, long-term, profitable intervention in the existing metabolic processes of the body would require a very deep and complex knowledge of those, which is not available today.

Research programs

The Foundation has directly funded or participated in research programs at the following universities: Yale University , Harvard University , Cambridge University , University of Texas , Rice University, and the University of Arizona .

International Conferences

So far, six SENS conferences have taken place at Queen's College in England. All conferences were organized by de Gray and brought together leading researchers in the field of biogerontology .

The conferences have been held every two years since September 2003.

In 2014, 2015 and 2016 the "Rejuvenation Biotechnology" conferences took place in Santa Clara, California , which for the first time not only focused on researchers, but also on business people and politicians.

In 2018 the foundation's first conference entitled "Undoing Aging" took place in Berlin . It was co-organized by the German entrepreneur Michael Greve. A new edition for 2019 has been announced.

Foundation assets

In 2012, the foundation received a donation from the De Gray Family Foundation of $ 13,100,000 to be used on a phased basis for research , education and public relations.

In 2013, US $ 2,381,952 of this donation was invested. Donations from many other supporters generated additional sales of $ 1,721,904 this year.

At the end of 2017, the foundation received donations equivalent to over 5 million US dollars in cryptocurrencies . At the beginning of 2018, the equivalent of US $ 2,400,000 was added in the form of Ethereum .

See also

literature

  • A. Mehta, M. Beck, A. Linhart, G. Sunder-Plassmann, U. Widmer: History of lysosomal storage diseases: an overview. Oxford PharmaGenesis, 2006, PMID 21290707 .
  • EJ Bonten et al. a .: Targeting macrophages with baculovirus-produced lysosomal enzymes: implications for enzyme replacement therapy of the glycoprotein storage disorder galactosialidosis. In: FASEB journal: official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Volume 18, Number 9, June 2004, ISSN  1530-6860 , pp. 971-973, doi: 10.1096 / fj.03-0941fje , PMID 15084520 .
  • Christoph Röcken et al: Interdisciplinary guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of extracerebral amyloidoses . In: German Society for Amyloid Diseases e. V. (Ed.): German Medical Weekly . 131, Suppl 2, 2006, ISSN  0012-0472 , p. 45-66 ( amyloid.de [PDF; 484 kB ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Archive of the summaries on the SRF website. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
  2. ↑ Rejuvenation Biotechnology 2014 . In: SENS Research Foundation . January 27, 2015 ( sens.org [accessed March 21, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Undoing Aging 2018. Accessed March 21, 2018 (English).
  4. ↑ SRF 2017 Year End Fundraiser Achieves Over $ 5 Million in Donations . In: SENS Research Foundation . January 17, 2018 ( sens.org [accessed March 21, 2018]).
  5. ↑ SRF Receives $ 2.4M Ethereum Donation from Vitalik Buterin . In: SENS Research Foundation . February 2, 2018 ( sens.org [accessed March 21, 2018]).