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ImmInst Contacting John Sperling


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#1 hughbristic

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Posted 24 January 2004 - 10:46 PM


The latest Wired magazine has an article on how the founder of the successful online learning company, the University of Pheonix, is investing his money in longevity research. Can't remember his name, and the article doesn't appear to be on their site. Apparently, he provided the seed capital for the Kronos Longevity Research Institute in Pheonix. The article indicates he is buying up biotech companies with the purpose of making a profit and gathering the expertise needed to make headway on treatments for aging. Sounds pretty exciting, as he seems to be approaching it from a transhumanist perspective. He is only supporting projects that are likely to pay dividends in 5 years, but the article indicates he plans to donate his $3 billion to aging research when he dies (I say when not if because he is in his 80s) and maybe that money won't be so constrained. Sounds like he is also trying to build a better mouse too (more long-lived anyway). I wonder if he is aware of Methusalah Mouse. Sounds like Aubrey de Grey should hit him up for a donation for his proposed Institute of Biomedical Gerontology (though I suspect he probably has, as he seems to have contact with the Kronos folks). Anybody know anything more about this guy and what he is doing (or at least his name)?

Hugh

WIRED ARTICLE - John Sperling:
http://www.wired.com...2/immortal.html

#2 Jace Tropic

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Posted 24 January 2004 - 11:43 PM

John Sperling.

Edited by Jace Tropic, 05 February 2004 - 04:44 PM.


#3 Da55id

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Posted 25 January 2004 - 01:13 AM

Dr. Cutler who is mentioned in the article is one of the announced competitors for the MM Prize

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#4 David

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Posted 25 January 2004 - 02:49 AM

Thanks for that Jace, I needed a boost! Now, where's me club? Gonna crack a few heads....

Did I tell you that University is giving me the shits?

Dave.

#5 nosmadar

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Posted 29 January 2004 - 09:46 AM

Sperling is serious about life extention and is spending considerable money to keeping research going. He also is the guy that may keep West and ACT from going under. He may be our White Knight. I wouldn't badmouth the man especially since he probably will not live long enough to reap the rewards of his investments.

#6 Bruce Klein

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Posted 29 January 2004 - 11:45 AM

Agreed nosmadar,

Thanks for joining and sharing your thoughts.

#7 randolfe

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Posted 30 January 2004 - 01:37 AM

Sperling's long history of supporting life extension is woven into Brian Alexander's book "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion".

And let me tell you from the perspective of someone approaching 66, don't think that because someone is in his 80s that he doesn't still have hope that the "stop aging" pill will be found in the next couple years and then he will be able to continue living till the "reverse aging" pill is developed.

As long as there is life, there is definitely hope. As long as there is the frozen suspended person, there is also some measure of hope. Immortality is about surviving. It's not a creed for the young only.

#8 David

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Posted 30 January 2004 - 01:41 AM

The bastards don't bow low enough when I pass by! Oh, and I'm sick of being broke... still, only a couple of years to go! Then the big bucks, I hope! If it wasn't for my volunteer work I'd be pulling my hair out, let me tell you.

The other thing is that I think I may be feeling the same sort of thing career women in the 20th century must have felt. In other words, I work really really hard, but don't seem to get the rewards some of the others get, you know, the girls in the classes. (The Psych dept. here is a girls club with a couple of token males). [huh]

I am of course fully aware that I may just suck academically, and are using the girls club as an excuse. [wis]

I take heart from a saying I use all the time: "The "A" students work for the "C" students, and the "B" students work for the Government. [lol]

Dave

#9 Bruce Klein

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Posted 31 January 2004 - 10:07 AM

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John Sperling

In 1998 Arizona billionaire John Sperling gave $3.7 million to Texas A&M University to clone his pet dog, Missy (the "Missyplicity Project"). He retained a Marin County, California publicist, Lou Hawthorne, to handle public relations. Hawthorne subsequently established "Genetic Savings and Clone," billed as a profit-making venture to provide pet cloning services http://www.savingsandclone.com. When it proved more difficult than expected to clone a dog, the cloning team began parallel efforts to clone a cat.

The birth of the first cloned domestic cat was announced by the Texas A&M research team in Feburary 2002. Born on December 22, 2001, "CopyCat" or "CC" was produced by fusing an ovarian tissue cell from an adult cat named Rainbow with a cat egg, and implanting that clonal embryo into an adult cat. This cloning "success" occurred after 188 failed attempts.

Sperling is controversial. He became wealthy as founder of the University of Phoenix, a distance learning university that has been accused by many of being a "diploma mill." He has since used his assets to support a number of idiosyncratic endeavors. Most recently he founded Kronos, a for-profit chain of "anti-aging" clinics, some of whose principals are associated with efforts to achieve physical immortality through genetic modification and other technologies (See: http://research.medn...ens/article.htm).


Cloning of pet animals serves no justifiable purpose. These efforts serve only to play upon one set of emotions—our love of pets—in order to desensitize another set of emotions—our repugnance at the idea of treating living creatures as artifacts that can be "designed" and manufactured.

The Missyplicity website reads almost as a parody of a slick public relations effort employed to sugarcoat an endeavor that the great majority of people find highly objectionable (See http://www.missyplicity.com).

Several environmental and animal rights organizations have expressed opposition to pet cloning, including Friends of the Earth and the Humane Society of the United States, the largest animal welfare organization in the country.

Article Reference: http://www.genetics-...loping/pet.html

#10 Bruce Klein

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Posted 31 January 2004 - 10:11 AM

Posted Image

Sperling is CEO and chairman of Exeter Life Sciences and the chairman of the Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix. The university is a thriving private, degree-granting enterprise in higher education for adults. It features an outcome-oriented adult education consulting company with an in-house publishing division. In 2000 Sperling wrote Rebel with A Cause: The Entrepreneur Who Created the University of Phoenix and the For-Profit Revolution in Higher Education.

http://web.reed.edu/...rling_gift.html

#11 hughbristic

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Posted 31 January 2004 - 01:19 PM

Most recently he founded Kronos, a for-profit chain of "anti-aging" clinics, some of whose principals are associated with efforts to achieve physical immortality through genetic modification and other technologies (See: http://research.medn...ens/article.htm).


Cloning of pet animals serves no justifiable purpose. These efforts serve only to play upon one set of emotions—our love of pets—in order to desensitize another set of emotions—our repugnance at the idea of treating living creatures as artifacts that can be "designed" and manufactured.


I disagree with the idea that cloning animals serves no justifiable purpose. It all seems a part of Sperling's general plan to gather together and sustainably fund people who have the skills to do good work on extending human lifespan. Such an entrepreneurial approach may be our best hope of making progresss in longevity research in a hostile regulatory environment. The government isn't gonna fund my research because of Leon Kass? Well forget Kass, I'll just do the all-american thing and set up a company where I can make money off of longevity research!

Also, as someone who works in distance learning, I can tell you the process the University of Pheonix uses to choose, develop, and deliver courses is much more likely to meet the needs of students than the unaccountable, non-meritocratic, beurocracy that makes courses at publically-funed universities (well, mine, at least). After reading about Sperling, I'm keeping an eye out for jobs at UofP. He is my hero.

Hugh

#12 Bruce Klein

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Posted 05 February 2004 - 12:03 PM

Posted Image

John Sperling Wants You to Live Forever
http://www.wired.com...mmortal_pr.html

And he's Promising $3 billion to make it so.

By Brian Alexander

The genie gives you three wishes, so of course you ask for money. Next you ask for wisdom to help you do something worthwhile with all that cash. Finally, you'd like time enough to pursue a project that ensures your legacy.

Posted Image
Photo by Michael Grecco
He founded the University of Phoenix. He also cloned a pet cat. His latest iconoclastic quest: Research, develop, and sell the new science of longevity.
In 1994, John Sperling rubbed the lamp, and his company went public. The IPO of the Apollo Group, parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, netted him almost half a billion dollars. Three years later, Sperling read a newspaper account speculating that a gene responsible for dramatically extending the lifespans of worms could also be found in humans. Sperling, then 77, wanted to know more. So, with a billionaire's logic, he hired his cardiologist to make a thorough search of the science of longevity. The doctor reported that some startling findings were beginning to trickle out of academic labs, but that nobody was translating those results into human applications. Right then, Sperling decided how to spend his new windfall.

For the past seven years, Sperling has quietly assembled an unorthodox team of researchers poised to use all relevant technology - including, ultimately, therapeutic cloning, stem cell medicine, and genetic engineering - to alleviate human suffering and the fear of death. Sperling oversees the effort by doling out funds from his own fortune.

Counting the stock he owns in the Apollo Group companies, that fortune is fast approaching $3 billion, most of which he says he plans to donate to research when he dies. If he follows through, Sperling will have created the single biggest private program to enhance human biology. Used to create an endowment, Sperling's money would generate at least $150 million a year - forever.

Yet that money has made Sperling an easy mark for critics: He's been portrayed as the Howard Hughes of biotech. Sperling was the mystery man behind the Missyplicity Project, in which a team from Texas A&M University tried and failed to clone his dog Missy ("How Much Is That Doggy in the Vitro?" Wired 8.03). But when the Missyplicity team did eventually manage to clone a house cat - named Cc: for Copy Cat - Nature Biotechnology, the field's journal of record, huffed that "Cc: was not created to advance medical knowledge or provide fundamental biological insights. She was created because there is a market among certain rich cat owners for resurrected animal companions." Sperling maintains that Missyplicity was merely "what Aristotle called the 'efficient cause.' We learned an enormous amount."

Either way, Missyplicity is a footnote to John Sperling's grand plan.

The anti-aging movement attracts all sorts of philanthropists interested in life extension and transhumanism. But Sperling gives different. While others are messianic about immortality, Sperling remains a pragmatist. He wants to see results now - and if those results are base hits rather than home runs, so be it. He's told his staff that everything he funds should have a scientific or economic payoff within five years.

Even a stepwise approach needs some seed money, and so far Sperling has planted more than $50 million. His first move was to form Kronos Group, a for-profit medical practice catering to the wealthy. The Kronos clinic opened in 1998 in an upscale Scottsdale, Arizona, shopping mall. At the clinic, which looks more like a luxury boutique hotel than a medical facility, patients pay $4,500 to undergo a battery of specialized diagnostic tests.

Kronos is a one-stop shop. Blood drawn from patients in Scottsdale is sent to a Kronos lab in Phoenix, where it is churned and analyzed by scientists looking for sex hormone-binding globulin, liver aspartate aminotransferase, ceruloplasmin, and other biomarkers so obscure most doctors have never heard of them. Based on the results, Kronos doctors lay out drug, dietary, and exercise plans. Then patients can buy the drugs and supplements from a Kronos-owned pharmacy.

Kronos is validating Sperling's vision of making progress pay for itself. In its first full year of operation, Kronos grossed $2.5 million. Five years later, in 2003, the five-year total was an estimated $37 million, with a base of 8,000 patients. According to CEO Jonathan Thatcher, Kronos is on the verge of turning a profit.

Originally, the Kronos concept was "anti-aging" medicine, but the clinic has since dropped all references to anti-aging and life extension - concepts suspect as snake oil to many doctors - in favor of a new mantra: "optimal health." The phrase is deliberately vague, and Thatcher ties himself in knots trying to explain it. "We're on the edge, not the fringe," he says of the "Kronos Way." "We're trying desperately to keep one foot in the mainstream. You can't be just on the fringe and make a difference."

Kronos is the first step in Sperling's march to longevity. Thatcher, who's become one of Sperling's half-dozen key advisers, says, "We're realistic enough to understand that you have to take the goal apart and reconstruct it brick by brick. What are the bricks right here at our feet? What are the ones 10 feet away? What's over the horizon? But always the overarching thing is to complete the picture."

To do that, Sperling formed a holding company called Exeter Life Sciences in 2001, installed Thatcher as president, and began to acquire biotech companies. In addition to Kronos Group, Exeter now includes Arcadia Biosciences, an agricultural biotech company, and its sister firm, Seaphire, which aims to create salt-tolerant crops.

Exeter's most intriguing maneuvers are in the fields of stem cells, cloning, and what has become known as "regenerative medicine." It almost bought PPL, the company that created Dolly the sheep, but the deal fell through. In 2001, Exeter formed Viagen from the ashes of GenomicFX, a defunct animal genetics company in Austin, Texas. And just last June, Viagen bought Prolinia, a livestock cloning firm headed by Steve Stice, a pioneer researcher in animal cloning and human embryonic stem cells at the University of Georgia. The Prolinia purchase is a perfect example of the Sperling philosophy. The company came with an immediate and practical source of income: a research agreement with Smithfield Foods, the world's largest swine breeder, to improve the genetics of its herds. Right now, there's money in farm animals. But the roll-up also creates a facility that could someday apply genetic, cloning, and stem cell technologies to the high-paying customers that patronize the Kronos clinics. "The next real market is for biological therapeutics," says Thatcher. "We will move into humans."

But not before doing some more basic research, which by definition doesn't make money. So Sperling created a nonprofit to handle his research needs. Kronos Longevity Research Institute focuses on human aging. Sperling has tapped Richard Cutler, a longtime researcher from the National Institute on Aging, and another NIA scientist named Mitch Harman, an expert on hormones, to lead it and organize collaborations with academic labs around the country.

Some of the institute's research sounds almost prosaic. It's studying estrogen replacement therapy in women; it's trying to prove the effectiveness of an early cancer-detection test called antimalignin antibody serum. It's working to establish lab methods to assess oxidative stress - the effect of free radicals - in human aging.

These are just more of Thatcher's bricks. "In research, we will be radical," he claims, and to back that up, he points to Cutler's plan to engineer a long-lived supermouse that could help illuminate the aging-related genes in people.

Few other old-line institutions are willing to fund such work. "I got approved for $1 million per year to investigate longevity genes," Cutler tells me. "I have never been able to get that type of money from the government, not in 17, 18 years. It was too far out."

For Cutler, Sperling's willingness to spend is the fulfillment of a dream. "We've never had a Manhattan Project whose aim and direction was to go after this thing called aging, because there's this thinking that it's bad to really interfere and increase lifespan."

Sperling has no such qualms and doubts the market will, either. "I think any one of these companies could become a billion-dollar company," he argues, referring to the Exeter portfolio. "And all of them together will be worth at least $500 million." He says the $50 million he has spent so far amounts to the first few drops in a coming torrent. "I'm a billionaire. Fifty million is not a lot of money."

The first thing Sperling did with his IPO windfall was start a war against the war on drugs. Allied with financier George Soros and insurance tycoon Peter Lewis, Sperling backed initiatives to legalize marijuana for patients with a prescription from their doctor, first in Arizona and California, then in seven other states, including Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon. The antidrug establishment condemned him, but voters gave the idea a thumbs-up.

Tweaking the entrenched power structure was pure Sperling, a man whose life makes Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches tales sound anemic. It began, no kidding, in a log cabin in the Missouri Ozarks. His mother was a Bible-quoting fundamentalist Christian, his father a feckless sometime railroad employee who beat his son and drank heavily. Sperling recalls just one childhood bright spot: his father's death. Sperling still remembers it as the happiest day of his life. He rolled around in the grass giggling when he heard the news.

After his father died, Sperling and his mother moved to Oregon, where he barely managed to graduate from high school in 1939 and then joined the merchant marine to escape the Depression. While sailing around the world he met other men, educated men, who also had been forced by economic distress to sign up, and they introduced him to the world of books. Sperling began to read voraciously, and the more he traveled, the more intellectually curious he became.

The GI Bill got him to graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he specialized in English history, philosophy, and economics, won a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, and there earned a PhD. He started his sideline in troublemaking as a San Jose State University professor, helping to organize a teachers union and a local branch of the ACLU. He mentored students protesting corporate harm to the environment by arranging for the burial of a Ford Maverick.

But his most radical act was to take $26,000 of his own money and start a for-profit educational center called the Institute for Professional Development, a place where adults could go to complete a college education or expand their career horizons. In 1976, it was renamed the University of Phoenix.

The new university defied mainstream academia. Not only was it meant to earn a profit, but it gave average working adults an opportunity to reinvent themselves through education without having to enroll in a traditional four-year university. Despite hostility from college accrediting agencies and allegations it was a "diploma mill," the University of Phoenix grew.

As did Sperling's wealth. Thanks to an end of year run-up in its stock price, he personally owns more than $2.8 billion in shares, and more voting stock is held in a trust he controls.

John Sperling doesn't look like a billionaire. The man who answers the door appears more like an accountant or a doctor. His hair, graying at the sides, is combed back. He's dressed casually in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, slacks, and metal-rimmed glasses. He's short and looks a decade younger than his 82 years.

Sperling's Exeter inner circle is here, preparing dinner at his Italianate mansion in Phoenix. Thatcher is slicing red peppers in the huge kitchen. Kronos' vice president of R&D, Christopher Heward, is here, as is Terri Hedegaard, a Phoenix exec and longtime friend, and Kate Kindred, Sperling's personal assistant and caretaker of his properties. As Hedegaard pours the wine and Thatcher continues to cook, Sperling sits down at the kitchen table. This youthful posse, most about half his age, clearly look up to the old man with affection. Sentences tend to start with "John," as in "John's vision is " and "John set the goals " and "John decides " They kibitz about politics, religion, pot - Sperling took part in the postwar sex and dope scene swirling in Berkeley - and when the subject of his Ozarks youth comes up, Sperling, a lifelong Democrat, needles Heward, a member of the Libertarian Party. "Talk about primitive!" Sperling says of his childhood. "They had a lot of Libertarians down there!"

Everybody laughs. Sperling gets younger by the minute.

The scene doesn't exactly suggest a revolution, but that's what it is. Sperling is freelancing biology on an unprecedented scale. He doesn't answer to a government agency or a board of directors - just his own bank account. He's free to say whatever he chooses.

"I am 100 percent for human enhancement!" Sperling says. "The more you can get the better! What do we want? To improve the quality of human life to maximize happiness, right?" According to Thatcher and others, Exeter will eventually try to develop cell therapies for regenerative medicine, possibly pursue therapeutic cloning technology on human cells, and maybe, someday, experiment with genetic engineering. It's too early to tell where the science will lead, but Sperling is keeping his options open.

One thing seems certain: Further research into life extension is going to earn Sperling a bunch of enemies, especially in the Bush administration. He says he doesn't seek confrontation, but he's happy to take on the Bush White House, especially on issues like therapeutic cloning and stem cells. "It became a philosophical construct with George Bush's election," Sperling says. "He decided to impose a fundamentalist Christian ethic on the scientific community." Sperling renounced any belief in God as a teenager, and now nothing steams him more than what he sees as religious-based oppression. So if the president - or anyone else - wants a fight, so be it.

The others nod. "As John said to me," Hedegaard recalls, "why fund popular causes? There's a lot of money for the popular causes. It's the unpopular ones that don't get funding."

Sperling is hardly a naive utopian. Contrary to the easy cliché, he's not a rich old guy gunning for immortality. He does not expect to reap much personal benefit from the science he's funding. "It will not help me at 82," he says, laughing. "I might eke out another six months or so" - and here the younger people around the dinner table object loudly - "so we're not talking about me." Then he nods to his acolytes. "Maybe these folks, at 40, or maybe not. As Chris says, it may take a century to solve this problem."

Meanwhile, he's enjoying the adventure. "I am spending my money on exactly what I want to do." And what he doesn't spend now, he tells me as we sip a nice merlot at the dinner table, he'll put into a foundation. "These three people," he says, pointing to Heward, Thatcher, and Hedegaard, "will all be part of the board of directors of the foundation. They'll have a huge pot of money to spend on good causes. I want to leave them $3 billion."

"We're going to pursue the goal," he says. "That will be my legacy."

The three of them laugh a little uncomfortably. I'm not sure if it's the huge figure, or if they're just beginning to grasp the magnitude of Sperling's last wish.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Alexander (bralexander@hotmail.com) is the author of Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion.

#13 Bruce Klein

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Posted 05 February 2004 - 12:13 PM

Posted Image

Kronos is going corporate

Posted Image
Dave Seibert/Scottsdale Republic

Kronos President Jonathan Thatcher works out at his headquarters office at Kierland Commons in northeast Phoenix.

High-end clinic to offer services through company health plans

Jodie Snyder
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 6, 2003 12:00 AM


Joe and Claudia Salontai spent a "horrendous" amount of money undergoing a medical gantlet to find out they were in bad shape, a problem they suspected.

Despite the $12,000 costs, the Phoenix couple said they would do the Kronos treatment all again.

More: http://www.azcentral...06kronos06.html

#14 DJS

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Posted 06 February 2004 - 06:23 AM

He founded the University of Phoenix. He also cloned a pet cat. His latest iconoclastic quest: Research, develop, and sell the new science of longevity. 
In 1994, John Sperling rubbed the lamp, and his company went public. The IPO of the Apollo Group, parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, netted him almost half a billion dollars. Three years later, Sperling read a newspaper account speculating that a gene responsible for dramatically extending the lifespans of worms could also be found in humans. Sperling, then 77, wanted to know more. So, with a billionaire's logic, he hired his cardiologist to make a thorough search of the science of longevity. The doctor reported that some startling findings were beginning to trickle out of academic labs, but that nobody was translating those results into human applications. Right then, Sperling decided how to spend his new windfall.

For the past seven years, Sperling has quietly assembled an unorthodox team of researchers poised to use all relevant technology - including, ultimately, therapeutic cloning, stem cell medicine, and genetic engineering - to alleviate human suffering and the fear of death. Sperling oversees the effort by doling out funds from his own fortune.


Hearing stuff like this gives me goosebumps. Here's this guy with $3B having thoughts similar to what we're having [wis] This is exactly what we need.

#15 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 06 February 2004 - 03:32 PM

Hearing stuff like this gives me goosebumps.  Here's this guy with $3B having thoughts similar to what we're having  [wis]  This is exactly what we need.


Is this guy signed up for suspension Don?

#16 Bruce Klein

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Posted 06 February 2004 - 04:39 PM

From what I understand, cryonics groups have made unsuccessful attempt thus far.

#17 reason

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Posted 07 February 2004 - 12:45 AM

BJKlein:  From what I understand, cryonics groups have made unsuccessful attempt thus far.


Which is his choice and should be respected; he's demonstrated himself smart enough to understand the consequences of that choice.

It's a pity that cryonics as an industry hasn't gained the same sort of high level billionaire support. I'm guessing it'll happen when lifespans start to be extended and it's seen as a necessary item in the toolkit by a wider group of people...but much bootstrapping has to happen by then, and this is really decades-long business growth we're talking about.

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#18 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 07 February 2004 - 02:03 AM

That he hasn't signed up, doesn't even begin to make sense.

#19 DJS

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Posted 07 February 2004 - 05:53 AM

There is also the possiblity that, with his kind of money, he is handling his suspension privately. [glasses]

#20 DJS

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Posted 08 February 2004 - 10:34 AM

A Phoenix Company Pioneers Anti-Aging Medicine
By Deborah Paddison

Last fall, Valerie West (Name has been changed), a 40-something real estate marketing executive, was no longer at the top of her game. She lacked energy, and required nine to 10 hours of sleep each night just to be able to function in the morning. By 5 p.m. she was exhausted, and would drop into bed around 8:30. Evening events were impossible. At work, she had lost her ability to speak with confidence at presentations and meetings because she would find herself taking long pauses in her sentences and forgetting her place. She'd go blank on names of people she worked with every day. It got so bad that this normally vibrant, energetic professional would collapse in tears, frustrated by the whole situation. Suspecting chronic fatigue syndrome, Valerie spoke with her physician. When a definitive diagnosis was not forthcoming, she did something revolutionary: she contacted The Kronos Clinic.

The New Wave in Anti-aging Medicine
The Kronos Group of Phoenix is a company on the leading edge of the anti-aging medicine movement. Kronos practices a proactive approach to clinical age management designed to build the body's defenses against age-related diseases such as arthritis, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, helping people achieve optimum health and maintain it as they age.

In September 1999, Kronos opened its first bricks-and-mortar Kronos Clinic in Phoenix, which also contains a clinical research laboratory. The company has also acquired a compounding pharmacy operation based in Las Vegas.

"From a market perspective, the consumers of anti-aging medicine are very cohesive and attitudinally driven," says Jonathan Thatcher, CEO of The Kronos Group. "While men and women age 40 to 60 are our basic target market, through research we've identified distinct market segments we can target with our advertising, allowing us to craft individual messages that will speak to each group


disinfo



#21 faith_machine

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Posted 09 February 2004 - 01:10 AM

I am very inspired by a man who could single handedly save hundreds of millions of lives! I was also very impressed with Kronos company. I have seen a presentation on their research, by Richard Cutler, and others at IAGB-10 in Cambridge.

Kronos has a biomarkers of aging test that looks at 150 blood biomarkers. I believe it is the best test of the state of health of your body in the entire world at the moment. The presentation was great. I like any billionaire or person that wants to live ... however, I hope he finds Aubrey deGrey's plan SENS to defeat aging. It is basic research, only $54 million over 27 years to beat aging by 2030. (Sadly, right now Mr. Sperling doesn't fund basic research .. only projects of 5 years or less to realization).

.. Maybe he could help the biogerontologists or fund a workable suspended animation research effort? (Thats what I would do if I were him!).

#22 DJS

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Posted 10 February 2004 - 07:54 AM

Found a good PDF file about Kronos' philosophy and mission statement, including on page 11; "Aging, a vicious cycle".

kronoscentre.com

#23 faith_machine

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Posted 10 February 2004 - 11:52 AM

That is a fantastic introduction to what Kronos does Don! I have I PDF I can send that has sample data for a KRONOS Biomarker blood test (36 pages). I can give a copy to anyone who emails me for it, if your interested. It may take me a few days to get it to you as I have a business trip from today until Thurs.

It is also somewhere on their website and their method is patent pending with the patent office.

#24 Bruce Klein

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Posted 02 March 2004 - 10:48 PM

Carried Over From Topic "Rapture":

Dear Bruce

great! Hopefully Brian will tell you how to get an interview with Mr. Sperling. If he doesn´t want/can´t help you, you could try to contact Kronos Company, of which Mr. Sperling is the CEO. The Kronos staff should be able to tell you how to contact its CEO.

The address is:

Kronos Corporate Headquarters
4455 East Camelback Road, Ste. B-100
Phoenix, Arizona 85018-2843
Toll-Free: 1-877-667-0007
Local: 602-667-0007
Fax: 602-667-7772
Homepage: http://www.kronoscompany.com

E-mail of Jonathan Thatcher (President, Exeter Life Sciences): Jonathan.Thatcher@KronosCompany.com

If you got an interview date with Mr. Sperling, it would be great, if you could open a discussion topic, where every interested imminst-member can post his/her questions for Mr. Sperling. If this would be O.K. for you, these questions could be an important basis for the interview.

CU
Martin

---


Brian [Alexander],

I've recommended Rapture to ImmInst members here:
http://imminst.org/f...=ST&f=13&t=1901

Thanks for an entertaining and informative book.

Incidentally, ImmInst is nearing completion of its first book to be called,

"The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans".

More: http://www.imminst.org/book

While final cut-off for essay submissions to the first book has passed, you're
warmly invited to participate in forthcoming future publications.

Also, a perceptive ImmInst member by the name of Martin has suggested that
we contact John Sperling to let him know of our mission to conquer
involuntary death.

Therefore, I shamelessly ask if you would happen to know of John's
email or contact information. Feel free to ignore this request, or let
let me know how many miles I must crawl on my hands and knees
before you'll relinquish it.

Charismatically yours,

Bruce Klein,
Chair, ImmInst.org

--

Hi Bruce...
I don't have any special inside way to get to John Sperling. Just try
Kronos Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ. They should be able to direct you to the
executives in charge.

And thanks very much for paying attention to Rapture. I appreciate it.

best,
Brian

#25 Bruce Klein

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Posted 02 March 2004 - 10:54 PM

Martin,

Would you be interested in helping me draft a letter to Sperling with an explanation of what ImmInst is trying to do and how we could possible help him?

I suspect the best way to approach this is by providing Sparling with examples of how ImmInst is an effective engine for social change.

For example, ImmInst has a strong and supportive anti-aging network ready to help researchers and new members with questions. Thus, Sperling may benefit the anti-aging community by helping ImmInst strengthen its outreach capabilities.

#26 reason

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Posted 03 March 2004 - 12:02 AM

Good job in making your way through this contact process, Bruce et al. Keep it up.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

#27 Martin

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Posted 03 March 2004 - 06:44 PM

Dear Bruce,

here is my suggestion for a draft letter for Mr. Sperling. Of course you can modify and improve it!

CU
Martin

Suggestion for the draft letter:
Dear Mr. Sperling,

my name is Bruce Klein. I am the founder of the Immortality Institute (ImmInst), which is a nonprofit educational and charitable organization with the mission to conquer the blight of involuntary death. ImmInst functions as an umbrella organization to help its members succeed in working towards the possibility of human physical immortality. So ImmInst serves as a platform for the exhibition, exchange, debate, and creation of concepts and methods toward that end as well as to disseminate any and all relevant information for the purpose of human physical immortality. You will find much more detailed information on our homepage http://www.imminst.org
Recently I read an WIRED-article about you written by Mr. Brian Alexander. The author writes, that you plan to invest $3 billion in anti-aging research upon your death. As you can imagine many ImmInst-members have been very excited after reading this article. But many questions remain. So we would feel honoured, if you gave us the opportunity for an in-depth interview concerning your anti-aging research plans. Of course you could decide about time and location of the interview.
Perhaps you could even imagine a regular discussion with us? ImmInst hopes to be an effective engine for social change. For example, ImmInst has a strong and supportive anti-aging network ready to help researchers and new members with questions. A regular discussion with you would surely be extremely inspiring - hopefully for both sides.
I know, that you are very busy, but I really hope that you will find the time to answer me.

Thank you very much and warm regards
Bruce

#28 Martin

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Posted 03 March 2004 - 06:48 PM

If Mr. Thatcher doesn´t want to forward the letter to Mr. Sperling, hopefully another Kronos director will do.
CU
Martin

The contact addresses are:

Henry (Bud) Ring
Chief Operating Officer
602-522-1145
Bud.Ring@KronosCompany.com

Donna Baker-Miller
Vice President, Product Development
602-778-1958
Donna.Baker-Miller@KronosCompany.com

Chris Heward, Ph.D.
Vice President of Research & Development
602-778-1906
Chris.Heward@KronosCompany.com

Gary Bucher, M.D. FAAFP, FACN
Medical Director
602-522-1158
Gary.Bucher@KronosCompany.com

Andrew Dodgen
Vice President of Finance
602-522-1141
Andrew.Dodgen@KronosCompany.com

Richard Fura, Pharm.D.
Consulting Pharmacist
1-800-723-7455
Richard.Fura@KronosPharmacy.com

Tim Miller
Vice President of Sales
602-778-1965
Tim.Miller@KronosCompany.com

Laura Plimpton
Vice President, General Counsel
602-522-1143
Laura.Plimpton@KronosCompany.com

Mark Wright
Director of Centre Operations
480-483-4222
Mark.Wright@KronosCentre.com

Ernie Zaik
Vice President Corporate Development
602-778-1920
Ernie.Zaik@KronosCompany.com

#29 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 04 March 2004 - 04:58 AM

Recently I read an WIRED-article about you written by Mr. Brian Alexander. The author writes, that you plan to invest $3 billion in anti-aging research upon your death. As you can imagine many ImmInst-members have been very excited after reading this article.


Pretend you Mr Sperling, then roll this around in your mind for a few moments Bruce, I'm not thinking that this is going to resonate to well. [sfty]

#30 kevin

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Posted 04 March 2004 - 06:34 AM

LOL..




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