Members

Chief Science Officer's Team


Project Description

A forum for the dissemination of new basic science and biomedical advances in the core fields of the SENS platform of rejuvenation biotechnologies. Here CSO Dr. Aubrey de Grey, along with research assistants Michael Rae and Ben Zealley, alert researchers in basic and translational sciences and biomedical engineers to new findings, and place them in the context of SENS Foundation's mission of ending the diseases and suffering of aging.

Project News & Updates

NFT-Specific Tau Vaccine Arrests Tangle Progress

Submitted by Michael Rae on January 1, 2012 - 6:37pm

Immunotherapy targeting the age-related accumulation of extracellular aggregates, in the form of ß-amyloid, is the first  rejuvenation biotechnology to reach Phase III human clinical trials.

With True Cells Come True Benefits: the Potential of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Released in a Model of Parkinson's Disease

Submitted by Michael Rae on November 25, 2011 - 2:36pm

Rejuvenation biotechnology encompasses a suite of advanced medical therapies, each of which removes, repairs, replaces, or renders harmless one of the forms of cellular or molecular damage that accumulates in an aging tissue over time and impairs its function.

Nothin' Gonna Hold Me Back: Clearance of Senescent Cells for Tissue Rejuvenation

Submitted by Michael Rae on November 6, 2011 - 6:02pm

"Senescent" cells progressively restrict the body's capacity for tissue renewal and secrete factors that disrupt local tissue homeostasis. A new study provides proof-of-concept that ablation of these cells can delay -- and potentially contribute to the reversal of -- age-related tissue dysfunction and disease.

Novel Abeta Vaccine Reports First Human Data

Submitted by Michael Rae on October 23, 2011 - 5:27pm

Accumulation of  soluble and insoluble aggregates of beta-amyloid protein (Aß) and other malformed proteins accumulate in brain aging and neurodegenerative disease, leading progressively to neuronal dysfunction and/or loss. These have long been widely accepted to be drivers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other age-related dementias and neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, and it has recently become increasingly clear that neuronal protein aggregates are the main driver of "normal" cognitive aging.

A Green Light for the Ultimate Cure for Cancer

Submitted by Michael Rae on October 14, 2011 - 5:12pm

To develop an unbreachable defense against cancer, SENS Foundation is pursuing the WILT (Wholebody Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres, or OncoSENS) strategy of preemptively deleting genes essential to the cellular telomere-maintenance mechanisms (TMM) from all somatic cells, while ensuring ongoing tissue repair and maintenance through periodic re-seeding of somatic stem-cell pools with autologous TMM-deficient cells whose telomeres have been lengthened ex vivo.

From AGE to SENS5: Building Momentum For Human Rejuvenation

Submitted by Michael Rae on August 26, 2011 - 11:07am

The fifth biannual Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence biomedical conference is just days away. Getting ready for the trip has cast my mind back not only to previous meetings of this exciting interdisciplinary series, and also to the recent 40th meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE).

Overtime Pay for the Municipal Waste Team

Submitted by Michael Rae on August 5, 2011 - 5:25pm

As we have previously reviewed, a comprehensive suite of rejuvenation biotechnologies must include the removal of extracellular aggregates from aging cells and tissues.

Efficient, Mutation-Free, Large-Payload Gene Therapy of iPS

Submitted by Michael Rae on May 24, 2011 - 12:58pm

Efficient, safe methods of gene therapy will be essential enabling technologies for the repair or obviation of several  of the cellular and molecular lesions driving age-related disease and dysfunction, notably the accumulations of mutations in mitochondrial and nuclear DNA (including the medium-term obviation of the latter through

Rescue of Oxidative Phosphorylation with "Allotopic" mRNA

Submitted by Michael Rae on April 10, 2011 - 10:53am

As previously discussed,

Age-related accumulation of mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is widely suspected to play an important role in the degenerative aging process, albeit that controversy remains as to the mechanism(s) linking the two. Large deletions in mtDNA seem an especially likely culprit ...

Doris Taylor: Recellularized Human Hearts May be Weeks Away

Submitted by Michael Rae on April 4, 2011 - 5:32pm

It has been an exciting period ever since Dr. Doris Taylor of the University of Minnesota's Center for Cardiovascular repair outlined her results prior to publication in 2008 at the Foundation's Understanding Aging: Biomedical and Bioengineering Apporoaches conference at UCLA.

How (Not) to Run a Lifespan Study

Submitted by Michael Rae on March 27, 2011 - 10:29am

Much of the distraction in the literature of biogerontology, and an even higher ratio of studies cited and promoted in the popular media and the dietary supplement industry, derives from methodologically-poor lifespan studies in mice (or occasionally rats).

Research Report 2010

Submitted by Aubrey de Grey on March 22, 2011 - 2:34am

I'm delighted to be able to share with you our research report, prepared for the first 10 months of 2010, by Tanya Jones (our Director of Research Operations), working with our researchers and my CSO Team.  I thought it would be of interest to our supporters, and serve as a precursor to our 2010 Year End Report, which is currently under production as part of our finalizing our 2010 accounts.

Harnessing Wild Horses: New Roles of Free Radicals in Cell Signaling

Submitted by Michael Rae on March 21, 2011 - 1:06pm

The early free radical theory of aging was based on Dr. Denham Harman's remarkable insight that much of the cellular and molecular damage of aging bore strong resemblance to damage he observed in organisms exposed to ionizing radiation.(1) In subsequent decades, the theory -- and its later refinement into the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging(2,3) -- has gained wide acceptance, even as the challenges against it have mounted and risen in sophistication.

The Pathological Basis of "Normal" Cognitive Aging

Submitted by Michael Rae on February 17, 2011 - 2:24pm

The often-mooted question of whether "aging itself" is or is not a "disease" has long been mooted in biogerontological circles, with a long-held rhetorical preference for asserting that it is not, but rather, that it is a risk factor for the specific diseases of aging.(1) By contrast, the same fundamental semantic dispute was initially resolved in the opposite direction with regard to age-related cognitive decline and dementia, beginning in the early decades after Alois Alzheimer and Emil Kraepelin first identified the pathological basis of the Alzheimer's disea

Clearing Out the Dead Wood: Rejuvenating Humoral Immunity through Ablation Strategy

Submitted by Michael Rae on February 1, 2011 - 2:34pm

The degenerative aging of the immune system is responsible for an enormous burden of disease and disability, from the pain of recurrent Herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia, to elevated rates of chronic urinary tract infections, to complications in wounds, pressure sores, ulcers, and surgical incisions.

A CoDA for the Barriers to Genetic Rejuvenation Therapies?

Submitted by Michael Rae on January 8, 2011 - 11:42am

As we reviewed in a previous posting on a recent advance in genetic engineering with zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs),

NIA's ITP Confirms: Resveratrol Does Not Extend Lifespan; Limited Benefit to Rapamycin

Submitted by Michael Rae on October 27, 2010 - 4:50pm

The intrinsic biological aging process is driven by the accumulation of damage to the cellular and molecular structures in tissues and organs, resulting from the biochemical side-effects of essential metabolic processes. In turn, this rising decay of cellular and molecular structures drives the age-related rise in disability, disease, dependence, dementia, and ultimate risk of death.

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