As the spooky season draws to a close, ghosts and ghouls are far from the most terrifying things on our minds. Just as the ancient Celts confronted the mysteries of life and death through beliefs and rituals, today’s scientists are tackling something far scarier: life itself.
Rather than ghosts or imagined spirits, the real specters we face are the biological pathways that lead to age-related decline. Longevity research is shedding light on these mechanisms, uncovering methods to slow cellular aging, repair, and extend the human healthspan.
Far from superstition, this October, longevity researchers and enthusiasts have been reshaping the future of longevity with conferences, research, funding, and the launch of new approaches.
Upcoming conferences and events
Crypto City Builders Event with Vitalia
From October 19 to November 19, Vitalia is hosting an entire month of Crypto City Builders. Designed for startup founders, techno optimists, and crypto enthusiasts, the event is set to include a Crypto Cities Summit covering the network state, new jurisdictions, and real-world building; a Safe Harbor Summit encompassing legal jurisdictions, and a crypto-driven future; and a a Hackathon and a Start-up Demo Day, ensuring that boredom is definitely not on the agenda this month. Those looking to attend can find future info here.
Shifting from sickcare to healthcare at Driving the Prevention Society and Economic conference
Collider Health’s event, Driving the Prevention Society and Economy, is a UK-focused conference intended to upturn the current, reactive ‘sickcare’ model of healthcare to a preventive model using data science and cross-sector collaboration, with a focus on broad population health improvements, with a focus on preventative treatments and proactive care. It will take place on November 12 as part of the Longevity Forum, and tickets can be bought on Eventbrite.
International Institute of Longevity hosts the Roundtable of Longevity Clinics event
On December 6 and 7, the International Institute of Longevity will bring together longevity practitioners, businesses and investors as part of the second edition of the Longevity Roundtable. This year’s event is set to cover epigenetic clocks, regenerative medicine, clinical interventions, and lifespan-extending practices like nutrition and exercise, with ticket prices ranging from $199 for virtual attendance to $999 for VIP tickets, all of which are available here.
Tech breakthroughs & new research
VitaRNA/Artan Bio advancing to preclinical studies
Having been funded via both VitaDAO directly for $91,000 and through IP tokenization at $300,000, VitaRNA/Artan Bio has reached two key project milestones, including the validation of two tRNA suppressor candidates targeting arginine nonsense mutations. By collaborating with Lonza for manufacturing, the team hopes to now test its primary candidate known as ARTAN-102 and will seek a new funding round to do so early in Q1 2025.
New research published in Nature shows AI-based approach to enhancing longevity research
The team at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging recently published a paper on the usage of machine learning to analyze metabolomic data from fruit flies and humans. This identified threonine as a key metabolite that impacts lifespan across species. It highlighted how cross-species data can be utilized to accelerate longevity research and how extensive human datasets like UK Biobank allow researchers to pinpoint metabolites such as threonine and orotate that influence aging. Read the full paper here.
DeSci and DAOs
Gamifying longevity with Pump Science
Perhaps the most novel approach to longevity funding yet, the Pump Science team is in collaboration with Molecule. As a form of ‘citizen science’, the Pump team developed a longevity prediction platform in which tokens are linked to real-world stakes in life extension compounds. The Pump.Fun token is linked to compounds that participants believe can improve lifespan. Once a market cap of $10,000 is reached for a specific compound, a ”WormBot” (AI-driven testing platform) is triggered and experiments are then run at Ora Biomedical, with results streamed to Pump Science at regular intervals. This approach hopes to draw both on crypto funding, trading, and gamification to deliver real-life results.
Hackathon time: building new longevity city solutions
Running online from November 4-11, Vitalia, the founder of the “Longevity City” on Roatan, is set to host a hackathon event dedicated to building and accelerating longevity city solutions. This event is set to take place during Vitalia’s Crypto Builders’ Month discussed above.
VitaLabs Fellowship program is now open
With the aim of attracting new and brilliant minds to longevity research, the VitaLabs team (an offshoot of VitaDAO) has launched a fellowship program to seek interested scientists for its program. This team is looking for creative, independent thinkers with PhDs and interests in entrepreneurship and longevity. Applications are open now on the site.
News and funding
$120 million in funding for Terray Therapeutics
Having launched a Series B funding round earlier this year, Terray Therapeutics has announced that it’s raised a sizable $120 million to accelerate its drug discovery platform, backed by the self-declared ‘world’s largest chemistry dataset.’ This dataset, derived from over five billion target-ligand interactions, is continuing to grow and aims to aid the fast-tracking of drug discovery for complex and age-related diseases. In addition, the team is collaborating with Calico, Google’s biotech venture, to manage the development and commercialization of drug discovery in exchange for milestone and royalty payments.
Expand Health and Humanity partner to create new platform
Humanity is the app that predicts aging and health using smart technology, and Expand Health pioneers “Longevity as a Service” via its clinic hubs using AI-backed technology. The latest announcement of a collaboration between the two may come as little surprise given the shift from traditional “sickcare” toward personalized, preventive healthcare. By using Humanity’s B2B API, the platform is designed to offer real-time insights into patients’ biological ages, providing a powerful health metric that reflects lifestyle and genetic factors more accurately than chronological age.
$1.4 billion deal as AbbVie is set to acquire Aliada Therapeutics
In a deal valued at $1.4 billion, AbbVie, a pharmaceutical research and development company, has just agreed to acquire Aliada Therapeutics, a biotech specializing in blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration. The biotech’s lead compound, known as ALIA-1758, is designed to reduce Alzheimer’s-related amyloid plaques by targeting the transferrin receptor to cross the BBB. It is currently in clinical trials. Of course, this single product is not the only part of the deal; AbbVie expressed an interest in Aliada’s MODEL platform, which uses transferrin and CD98 receptors to deliver large biological molecules and genetic medicines into the CNS. This has potential use cases within AbbVie’s product development pipeline.
Longevity at your fingertips — literally
Finnish wearable company Oura has just announced the launch of its Oura Ring 4, a smart wearable that uses smart sensing for enhanced accuracy and personalization. Used in connection with the company’s app, the latest edition reports a 120% boost in signal quality for O2 saturation statistics and 31% fewer nighttime heart rate gaps, making it more accurate than previous models.
Social media pages to follow this month
Pump Science — crypto gaming for longevity
Lifespan Research Foundation (formerly SENS) — the latest updates from LRI
Vitalia City — feaures a whole host of events
