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I love investing. Every investor who strives to understand their craft to the fullest, ends up at the undeniable conclusion that time is the most valuable asset, bar none. Without it, nothing else of value can exist, it’s the magic ingredient. We can leave value behind for our loved ones, but on an individual level, this intangible asset is a requirement to value and enjoyment as a life form.

Technological innovation and growth can be compared to a snowball rolling down a mountainside, growing faster with each rotation, while speeding up simultaneously. Moore’s Law has held for decades, some say we will hit a wall in silicon transistor shrinking, but the advent of graphene has recently given new light on how this can continue on. New materials, will keep the acceleration of processing power and shrinking of those technologies, intact.

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My dispatch for Vice from the recent successful RAAD Festival—a giant gathering of longevity enthusiasts:


In less than a month, I’ll mark the two-year anniversary to my presidential campaign for the Transhumanist Party. My run for the White House was never about winning, but spreading the idea that Americans can achieve indefinite lifespans through science and technology—if only the government were to help out and put significant resources into the anti-aging field.

While the US government still hasn’t shown much interest in supporting longevity research for its citizens, the life extension movement is dramatically expanding around the world. Two years ago, the idea of speaking to 1000 longevity advocates in the same convention hall was a pipe dream. Most transhumanist conferences could barely get 100 people in the same room.

Last weekend in San Diego, that all changed. Billed as the biggest life extension festival in history, RAAD Fest took place from August 4–7. Over 1000 participants made it to the sold-out event, making it the largest group of transhumanists and longevity activists ever to assemble in one place.

The success of the festival signals the growing trend of the life extension movement. In the last few years, major companies like Google’s Calico and Human Longevity Inc. have formed to combat aging. Additionally, billionaires like Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison have funded longevity and anti-aging initiatives. Even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently called for science to end all disease this century.

Are you an avid supporter of aging research and a keen longevity activist?
The Biogerontology Research Foundation is offering select summer internships for talented individuals. You’d join a passionate and supportive team in researching diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic strategies; advising a panel of investors in developing a roadmap to promote longevity science and related technologies across the globe.

The advertised positions are 3 month internships, with the possibility of continuing afterwards. Free accommodation will be provided for in London, alongside a negotiable salary.

The Biogerontology Research Foundation is a UK based think tank dedicated to aging research and accelerating its application worldwide.

Apply to: [email protected]

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Interesting read; like the plug by Rajeev Alur about how the insights from the ExCAPE project has helped advance making QC programmable. Like Alur, I too see many synergies across multiple areas of science & tech. For example, the work on singularity is being advance by the work performed around anti-aging, cancer research, etc. and vice versa. Truly one of my biggest enjoyments of research and innovation is taking a accept or vision, and guessing where else can the concept be leveraged or even advancing other industries.


NSF’s mission is to advance the progress of science, a mission accomplished by funding proposals for research and education made by scientists, engineers, and educators from across the country.

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Keith Comito from LEAF/Lifespan.io talking about the need for a unified call to action and how we have reached a turning point in the life extension movement.


In this talk LEAF President Keith Comito explains how initatives like Lifespan.io (https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/sens-control-alt-delete-cancer/) fit into the broader goal of building a grassroots movement in support of life extension, with the eventual aim of effecting massive societial change on the issue. If you are looking for a deep dive into the full scope of life extension advocacy, from the dawn of history to current breakthroughs and opportunities, this is it.

This presentation is part of the Designing New Advances conference held by the Institute of Exponential Sciences in the Netherlands, orchestrated by Demian Hoed and Lotte van Noort.

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With only 9 days left on the SENS cancer fundraiser here is an article from Fightaging! that explains why finding novel solutions to treating cancer is critical in the roadmap to longer healthier lives.


This year’s SENS rejuvenation research crowdfunding event puts the spotlight on the SENS Research Foundation’s cancer program. So far more than 300 people have donated, and more than $26,000 has been raised; with ten days left to go, it won’t take that much more of an effort to reach the same number of donors and the same level of support given to last year’s fundraiser, and which led to the success in that research program. As for all of the SENS research initiatives in the science of aging, the SENS Research Foundation’s work on cancer aims to support a big, bold goal in medicine: to build a single type of therapy that can be used to effectively treat all forms of cancer. When achieved, that will greatly increase the pace of progress towards control of cancer, the goal of finally ending cancer as a threat to health. At present the cancer research community spends much of its time and funding on approaches that are highly specific to only one or only a few of the hundred of subtypes of cancer. That is no way to win any time soon, as even with the vast funding devoted to cancer research, there are just too many forms of cancer and too few researchers. What is needed is to change the strategy, to focus on approaches to the treatment of cancer that are no more expensive to develop, but that far more patients can benefit from.

The most promising approach to a universal cancer therapy is to block telomere lengthening in cancerous tissues. Telomeres are a part of the mechanism that limits cell division in all human cells other than stem cells, repeating DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes that shorten every time a cell divides. In order to achieve unfettered growth all cancers must bypass this limit by continually lengthening their telomeres, a goal that is achieved through mutations that allow cancer cells to use telomerase or the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) processes. If both telomerase and ALT can be blocked in cancer tissue, then the cancer will wither; this is such a fundamental piece of cellular machinery that there is no expectation that cancer cells could find a way around it. Block only one of these two methods of telomere lengthening, however, and the cancer will probably switch to use the other. This has been observed in mice.

Thus it is very important that the research community deploy both telomerase and ALT blockades as a part of a prospective universal cancer therapy. Unfortunately while a number of groups are working on telomerase interdiction, and telomerase is very well studied these days, ALT is still poorly characterized, at the frontiers of what is known of cell biology. ALT doesn’t occur in normal cells, and thus despite the fact that 10% of cancers make use of it, only recently have the necessary tools been developed to work towards understanding and intervention. The SENS Research Foundation is picking up the slack in this overlooked area of development, and with our support is working towards ensuring that the first universal cancer therapies can in fact target both telomerase and ALT, and therefore succeed.

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Dr. Aubrey de Grey of the of the SENS Research Foundation explains the OncoSENS approach to curing ALT-Cancer, the corresponding crowdunding campaign (https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/sens-control-alt-delete-cancer/), and how this is a vital part of overcoming the ill-effects of aging.

This presentation is part of the Designing New Advances conference held by the Institute of Exponential Sciences in the Netherlands, orchestrated by Demian Hoed, and Lotte Van Norte.

ALT-Cancer refers to those cancers which use the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres mechanism to attain cellular immortality, as opposed to the expression of the enzyme Telomerase.

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California-based startup Ambrosia is starting clinical trials that will see older people pumped with blood from younger donors, in the hopes of rejuvenating their bodies.

Reversing and eliminating aging has always been one of the true Holy Grails of medical science. Like the search for the rumored Grail, the journey to eliminate aging will be a difficult one– and there is some doubt as to whether it is actually achievable.

But one startup seems like it may have cracked the problem, and is now beginning tests. Ambrosia, a startup based in Monterey, California, is starting a clinical trial to rejuvenate people over 35 by injecting them with young people’s blood.

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