“Twenty five years after the first consumer VR crash, virtual reality is poised to upend human-computer interaction, the Internet has disrupted every facet of life as we knew it back then, and the two are now on a collision course.”
Will Ichor Therapeutics be the first to clinic with a SENS based approach?
As I mentioned last week, earlier this year Fight Aging! invested a modest amount in the Ichor Therapeutics initiative to develop a treatment for macular degeneration, joining a number of other amateur and professional investors in helping to get this venture started. The approach taken here is based on the results of research carried out at the Methuselah Foundation and SENS Research Foundation over much of the past decade, funded by philanthropists and the support of our community of longevity science enthusiasts. This is how we succeed in building the future: medical science in the laboratory leads to medical development in startup companies, each new stage bringing treatments capable of repairing specific forms of age-related molecular damage that much closer to the clinic.
Ichor Therapeutics is one of a growing number of success stories to emerge from the SENS rejuvenation research community. Young scientists, advocates, and donors involved in earlier projects — years ago now — have gone on to build their own ventures, while retaining an interest in stepping up to do something meaningful to help bring an end to aging. Back in 2010, Kelsey Moody worked on the LysoSENS project to find ways to break down damaging metabolic waste in old tissues; fast-forward six years, and he is the now the CEO of a successful small biotechnology company with a great team, taking that very same technology and putting it to good use. I recently had the chance to ask Kelsey a few questions about the future of SENS rejuvenation research, as well as how the Ichor scientists intend to construct a new class of therapy for macular degeneration, one based on removing one of the root causes of the condition.
Ride-hailing giant Uber announced on Thursday that is has acquired Otto for approximately $680 million.
All of Otto’s team, which includes ex-leader of Google’s self-driving project, Anthony Levandowski, will move to Uber. They will work on the company’s self-driving project and report directly to CEO Travis Kalanick.
See also: Self-driving tech startup Otto wants truckers to keep on…napping.
China has unveiled illustrations of a Mars probe and rover it aims to send to the Red Planet at the end of the decade in a mission that faces “unprecedented” challenges, state media said on Wednesday.
China, which is pouring billions into its space programme and working to catch up with the US and Europe, announced in April it aims to send a spacecraft “around 2020” to orbit Mars, land and deploy the rover.
Zhang Rongqiao, chief architect of the project, said Tuesday they were targeting July or August of that year for the launch, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Beginning with a twitch in his fingers about six months ago, a Canadian man has successfully re-animated his paralyzed hand after undergoing a nerve transfer surgery.
Tim Raglin regularly dove, headfirst, into the water at his family’s lake house. The 45-year old Canadian man had done so thousands of times without incident. In 2007, though Raglin hit his head on a rock in the shallow water, shattering a vertebra in his cervical spine.
His family pulled him to safety, saving him from drowning. However, for nine years, both his hands and feet were left paralyzed.
