Fight Aging!

It looks like the SENS Foundation is now the SENS Research Foundation; a good name change, I think. The Foundation's year end newsletter arrived today:

Dear friends and supporters,

SENS Research Foundation's mission is to transform the way the world researches and treats the diseases of aging. As another holiday season approaches, we would like to share the progress that we have made with you. Our projects on lysosomal aggregates and mitochondrial mutations at our Mountain View, California research center have advanced steadily over the last year. We have also launched a major new project on the alternative lengthening of telomeres.

Meanwhile, we continued to expand our extramural programs, conducted in collaboration with such elite university partners as Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Berkeley. Our development work has also made great strides. You will soon see the results of a complete logo and website design overhaul, and the world-class animations that we have commissioned to visualize the individual strands of SENS.

All that said, you can be sure that the challenge we face remains daunting. Not a single one of the conditions that cause so much suffering and claim so many lives across the world - Alzheimer's, heart disease, and diabetes, to name a few - has yet been cured. We believe that the greatest promise to not simply treat but eradicate age-related disease lies in the use of regenerative medicine: the rejuvenation biotechnology approach. Unfortunately, despite the increasingly large amount of data indicating the effectiveness of this approach, research on "damage repair" therapies remains largely neglected.

As a nonprofit research charity, we depend on your generosity to drive this critical work. Our level of funding determines how many new scientific projects we can sponsor, how loudly we can broadcast our message, and how many students we can educate about the SENS platform. We have come a long way with your help so far, and have many more steps that we can take. In 2013, we will:

• Host SENS6, the next in our series of biennial conferences at Cambridge University, to bring together the scientists making the greatest breakthroughs in rejuvenation.
• Hold a summit for leaders in industry and academia to discuss the future of aging and the importance of an interdisciplinary approach.
• Grow our talented staff by hiring new postdoctoral-level researchers to head our in-house LysoSENS and OncoSENS projects.
• Fund new projects with partner universities and research centers.
• Dramatically extend the size and scope of our outreach efforts.
• Expand our summer internship program for student researchers to multiple campuses.

While we are proud of what we have achieved so far and optimistic about the future, we understand that a great deal of work remains to be done. Our vision -- a world free of age-related disease -- remains just that: a vision. With your support, we can keep on bringing it closer to a reality.

Warmest wishes,

Mike Kope, CEO
Aubrey de Grey, CSO
Tanya Jones, COO
and the rest of the SRF Team