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Why do anti-aging researchers need so much money?

funding lab costs

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11 replies to this topic

#1 ioanna

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Posted 22 November 2014 - 04:16 PM


Hi,

 

I really need your help! I'm trying to write a post on my blog about anti-aging research funding. As you might have noticed, many anti-aging researchers speak a lot about the need for funding, both private and public. Now, what they don't really mention is how exactly they are going to use the money. I believe that more people would be willing to donate if they knew how much lab equipment costed, for instance, or how pricey different stages of research trials were. Giving just a bulk estimate for huge procedures, like mouse rejuvenation, isn't that helpful, in my opinion. So, I'd like to fill this gap in the life extension advocacy discourse with my post, but unfortunately I myself cannot find too many credible sources that I could use. Please let me know if you have some suggestions for me.

 

Thanks a lot :),

Ioana



#2 Marios Kyriazis

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Posted 23 November 2014 - 11:10 AM

This is a vast subject. Anti-aging research may take different faces such as for example, molecular research in mice, genetic research in flies, or clinical research on humans. It may be that researchers want to do a clinical study of a new anti-aging drug (such as apoptotic modulators for example). Or set up an experiment to study polyphenic regulation (a very interesting and neglected subject). So the matter expands from basic theoretical research to applied clinical situations. It will depend on what facilities they already have, if they for example, work in an established laboratory or a well-funded institution, then they won't need as much money as someone who is setting up a new institution from scratch.

 

It also depends on the credibility of the project. Most people hope for a simple cure for ageing, such as a pill for example, but when it comes to donating money they know that this won't happen, so they are reluctant. People know, consciously or subconsciously, that ageing is not a simple matter of moving a few cells to the left, or switching on a few genes. In the past 40 years, we spent over 300 billion on cancer research but the average cure rates are not significantly better. We need new ways of thinking in order to capture the public imagination and move away from already tried and failed models of research.


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#3 Antonio2014

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Posted 23 November 2014 - 11:29 PM

As Marios said, a lot of money is spent on cancer research. The NIH spends around $ 5 billion per year on it. The SRF estimates that around $ 1 billion will probably suffice to produce what they call Robust Mouse Rejuvenation (a treatment that makes a 2 years old mouse, usually expected to live 1 more year, to live 3 more years). So, it's not so expensive compared to cancer research.

 

About more exact estimates, and how much money will be spent on each task, particularly for human life extension, probably they can't be calculated at this stage.



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#4 to age or not to age

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Posted 24 November 2014 - 03:33 AM

The link below is to excerpts from conversations I have had with David Sinclair, Leonard Guarente, Cynthia Kenyon

and Nicholas Bishop concerning the decline in NIH funding.  With the Republican control of the house and senate

the trend in funding may continue down.

 http://youtu.be/6kxqCqBlshU


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#5 to age or not to age

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Posted 24 November 2014 - 03:54 PM

I am personally convinced that the new jobs around the world will come from research, not only to extend healthspan and lifespan and to cure disease; but to save ourselves from ourselves with regard to resources, population

and the environment.  Scientists, to a man and  woman, are aghast at the tragedy of decreased funding.

Curing aging won't work unless other elements in society evolve with it. I believe this should be a political issue.


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#6 John Schloendorn

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Posted 27 November 2014 - 09:19 PM

I believe that more people would be willing to donate if they knew how much lab equipment costed, for instance

 

 

Heh, careful what you wish for.  The public might learn a thing or two about how outrageously science budgets get inflated by folks whose main business model in life is to raise as much money as possible, and then take some percentage of it.  The equipment vending and reagent making industries are of course delighted to charge as much as necessary to support each scientist-turned-sales-person's need for an expensive budget.  And then scientists who are less good at fundraising, or less willing to spend the majority of their time on fundraising get priced out of those markets.  

 

Clinical trials, don't even get me started...  For example see this fine piece, which is an estimate of what drug development costs based on pharma company data http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/12606142.  These authors inflate the cost by literally hundreds of millions of dollars based on the claim that they could have invested it in the stock market (which of course just so happened to be at the height of the tech bubble at the time), and all of the gains they missed out on should be added to the "cost" of the clinical trial.  (this is called the "real discount rate" or "cost of capital" in the paper).  And that's just one example.  It gets better from there!

 

Soo... why don't you study with your own eyes, whether what I'm saying has any semblance of truth in it.  If it does, would you still think that you can convince anyone to donate to these schemes by explaining to them how the schemes work?  Or do you think that's even a good idea in the first place (what's the alternative?)


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#7 ioanna

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Posted 28 November 2014 - 12:37 PM

Thanks so much, everybody! I really gave a lot of thought to what all of you wrote.

And @John Schloendorn, I've given up the whole idea altogether. :) I still think that this lack of information is a huge problem for private donors and for popular support, which might eventually lead to more public funding. Unfortunately, right now I don't know how to go about it. Any thoughts?



#8 The Immortalist

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Posted 28 November 2014 - 01:10 PM

Thanks so much, everybody! I really gave a lot of thought to what all of you wrote.

And @John Schloendorn, I've given up the whole idea altogether. :) I still think that this lack of information is a huge problem for private donors and for popular support, which might eventually lead to more public funding. Unfortunately, right now I don't know how to go about it. Any thoughts?

 

Personally I don't think there will be any major public support until they can show that they can double the lifespan of cats. Why cats? The internet is obsessed with cats. Dogs too I suppose. 

 

Forget robust mouse rejuvenation We need robust cat rejuvenation.


Edited by The Immortalist, 28 November 2014 - 01:12 PM.

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#9 Mind

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Posted 28 November 2014 - 01:22 PM

Thanks so much, everybody! I really gave a lot of thought to what all of you wrote.

And @John Schloendorn, I've given up the whole idea altogether. :) I still think that this lack of information is a huge problem for private donors and for popular support, which might eventually lead to more public funding. Unfortunately, right now I don't know how to go about it. Any thoughts?

 

Public funding is the worst, from what I have seen. Most of it goes to overhead. Universities are EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE places to do research. 

 

SRF does more quality work with a fraction of the money. Advocating for more "public" funding is like advocating to burn money & wealth.

 

The best bet, IMO, is to stick with known life extension advocates. They are in it for the long haul and will stretch every last penny (in contrast to the government which wastes every last penny, literally). SENS will make the money count. Private start-ups like Ichor, Gene & Cell, etc... founded by known immortalists, are a better place to push funding. I buy products from LEF once in a while because I know they use their profits to fund true life extension research, support cryonics, what-not.


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#10 corb

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Posted 28 November 2014 - 03:44 PM

Forget robust mouse rejuvenation We need robust cat rejuvenation.

 

Even though I'm a cat lover myself I'd say it's a bad idea.
Most house cats live to their late teens and up so any lifespan experiment with cats might take a long while. If it's successful of course.


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#11 Antonio2014

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Posted 28 November 2014 - 08:41 PM

Thanks so much, everybody! I really gave a lot of thought to what all of you wrote.

And @John Schloendorn, I've given up the whole idea altogether. :) I still think that this lack of information is a huge problem for private donors and for popular support, which might eventually lead to more public funding. Unfortunately, right now I don't know how to go about it. Any thoughts?

 

I personally don't fund any research that will be patented or restricted in any other way (for example, published in a non-open journal), but sometimes it's difficult to know beforehand what will be done by the researchers.



#12 John Schloendorn

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Posted 29 November 2014 - 01:04 AM

Unfortunately, right now I don't know how to go about it. Any thoughts?

 

 

What Mind says doesn't sound so bad.  If you start your own independent project, you can do things in line with your own motivation, and don't depend on anyone to say the whole truth and nothing but the truth, when they claim that they have your best interests in mind.  

 

But then how do you get food and shelter while you do your own thing?  Maybe you'll have to commit a sacrilege in the fundraisers' eyes -- and think less about how to raise money for solving problems, but more about how to make money by solving problems.  

 

Does that really sound so unrealistic? "Make money by solving problems?"  Wasn't that how this whole economy thing came into existence to begin with?  I mean back in the day, when there was economic growth, in the sense that later generations in growing economies were better off than earlier generations.  Before life got overrun by an endless hodgepodge of schemes to capture paper wealth, rather than create physical wealth?  There are ways to create wealth by solving important problems today, if you really want to.  The more important your problem is, and the more competent you are at solving it, the more money you can make.  Biotech is no exception.  Think about how to get a foothold... 

 

 

 


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