Up to EUR 200,000 of Donations to LEV Foundation Matched During October
While considering your end of year charitable donations for 2024, why not get in early and donate to support mouse studies of multiple combined rejuvenation therapies presently underway at Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation? Up to EUR 200,000 ($220,000 or so) of donations to the LEV Foundation will be matched during October, so donating now will bring greater funding to the table than donating later.
Donations from Didier Coeurnelle enable next phase of Robust Mouse Rejuvenation research program
Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF) today welcomes two very generous donations from long-time supporter of longevity research and activism, Didier Coeurnelle. The first donation is 200,000 euros (approximately 220,000 US dollars). The second donation, of up to another 200,000 euros, is dependent on LEVF receiving matching gifts from other donors from 1st October until the end of the month (October 31st). These donations enable a key set of pre-study pilots ahead of the next phase of LEVF's groundbreaking investigations into the effects of combining different damage-repair interventions for middle-aged mice.
Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation exists to conduct and inspire research to proactively identify and address the most challenging obstacles on the path to the widespread availability of comprehensively effective treatments to cure and prevent human age-related disease. Donations are processed free of charge by Every.org, a 501(c)3 non-profit, which will issue a tax receipt to you and disburse the full value of your gift (excluding only any applicable third-party fees) to us. Our partnership with Every.org markedly reduces administrative and regulatory overheads related to donations, enabling us to focus solely on realizing our mission.
A primary focus of LEV Foundation's work is to empirically demonstrate the feasibility and value of the divide-and-conquer approach to treating age-related disease - that is, the simultaneous deployment of therapies that independently address the distinct classes of damage that accumulate in aging bodies. In partnership with Ichor Life Sciences, we'll be conducting large-scale mouse lifespan studies of such therapeutic mixtures. To ensure the results of these studies are rapidly translatable to humans already in middle and old age, this program will focus solely on late-onset interventions. We anticipate that this program will deliver dramatic results both in scientific terms, and in illustrating to the general public the extraordinary potential of comprehensive rejuvenation medicine.
Why support the LEV Foundation? Because too few research organizations are working on combination therapies for the treatment of aging. Brian Kennedy's lab has demonstrated that combining small molecules that alter metabolism to modestly slow aging is a poor way forward: combine two mildly effective molecules and the result is as likely to be modestly accelerated aging as it is to be synergy in slowing aging. But what if one combines therapies that act on aging via repair of the known forms of cell and tissue damage that cause aging? These seem much more likely to exhibit synergies in improving health and extending life span. Fixing two problems should be better than fixing one, and the development of senolytic drugs to clear senescent cells has demonstrated in animal studies that fixing one problem can be pretty good for health and longevity.
But is anyone testing the available approaches to damage repair in combination? Not really, other than the LEV Foundation mouse studies. The obvious next step after developing a range of rejuvenation therapies that each address a single form of damage is to combine them, but even though this was always understood to be the obvious next step, it has been given little thought in research circles. Developing a better understanding of where the major challenges and benefits stand in the combination of approaches to rejuvenation is overdue, and a useful project.