SENS Research Foundation

Goals

The foundation's stated goal is to "transform the way the world researches and treats age-related disease." It advocates the 'SENS' approach, which it describes as "the repair of living cells and extracellular material in situ," an approach which it contrasts with geriatric medicine's focus on specific diseases and infirmities, and biogerontology's focus on intervention in metabolic processes. It funds research and uses outreach and education in order to expedite the various regenerative medicine research programs that go together to make the SENS project.

Research

In addition to research undertaken in-house at the Research Center in Mountain View, SRF has also taken part in and/or selectively funded extramural research at various other institutions, including Yale University, Harvard University, Cambridge University, University of Texas, Rice University and University of Arizona.

The SENS Research Foundation pursues research strands which correspond to seven categories of cellular damage which accumulate with age: accumulated side effects of metabolism which are eventually fatal.

1. Cell loss and cell atrophy — Stem cells and tissue engineering
2. Nuclear [epi]mutations — WILT, short for "Whole-body Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres"
3. Mitochondrial mutations — Allotopic expression of 13 proteins (Backup storage of mitochondrial DNA, in case of damage a copy can be found on the cell's nucleus, needed to replicate proteins used for cellular energy production)
4. Death-resistant cells — Targeted removal
5. Extracellular crosslinks — AGE-breaking molecules and tissue engineering (Advanced Glycation End products, refers to the binding of glucose, or sugar, to protein, which as a result becomes stiffer and more likely to be damaged and subjected to premature ageing)
6. Extracellular aggregates — Stimulating of the immune system to clear out the aggregates
7. Intracellular aggregates — Equipping the lysosome with enzymes capable of degrading the aggregates

SENS Research Foundation has at least one project underway in each of its seven research themes.

Outreach and education

SRF reaches out to policy makers, potential donors, researchers and volunteers through conferences and public events, most notably the biennial SENS Conferences held at Queens' College, Cambridge, which started in 2003, with the sixth conference taking place in 2013. The abstracts from the 2013 conference were published in Rejuvenation Research.

In 2014, SRF hosted the inaugural Rejuvenation Biotechnology conference in Santa Clara, CA, with George M. Church as the keynote speaker.

Donors and volunteers

On September 16, 2006, Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of the online payments system PayPal, announced that he is pledging $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation "to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging" (SENS research). Justin Bonomo, professional poker player, has pledged 5% of his tournament winnings for SENS research. On December 9, 2010, Jason Hope, entrepreneur based in Scottsdale, AZ, pledged $500,000 donation.

In 2011, Aubrey de Grey inherited $16.5 million on the death of his mother. Of this he assigned $13 million to fund SENS research, which by 2013 had the effect of roughly doubling the SENS Research Foundation's yearly budget to $4 million.

In 2014 the foundation had income of $1,831,830 and expenses of $5,157,451.