Some examples of SCIENCE projects we have crowdsourced in the past:
“Laser ablation of lipofuscin”
[2009] Lead: N.Schooler (SENS/private). An attempt to use medical lasers
to eliminate Alzheimer plaques, this was an early venture in Longecity crowdfunding. While results were not of satisfactory robustness, this project paved the way towards LongeCity taking a planned approach to quality control in community crowdfunding science. [More info]
“Mitochondrial uncoupling”
[2010] Lead: Dr. J.Gruber (Singapore). Modulation of the incomplete coupling
of electron transfer to ATP synthesis across the mitochondrial membrane has been proposed as a mechanism to slow aging. The project investigated this hypothesis in worms.
[Follow-up interview]
“Adult stem cells versus Alzheimer's”
[2011] Lead: Dr. A.Stolzing (Germany). Aiming to use adult stem cells in the fight
against age-related neurodegeneration such as Alzheimer's disease. Perhaps the most ambitious LongeCity funded project to date. [Publication]
“Modelling cryoprotectant toxicity”
[2012] Lead: Dr. JP de Magalhães (UK). The innate toxicity of compounds used
to protect against freezing damage limits their use for advancing the science of medical biostasis. Longecity crowdfunding helped generate new insights from gene expression profiling of endothelial cells exposed to ethylene glycol, thus helping to reveal molecular signatures helpful for future experiments on cryoprotectant toxicity [Publication]
“Mitochondria gene therapy”
[2013] Lead: Dr. M.O’Connor (SENS). Another perspective at the crucial role of
mitochondria in aging, this project supported research into rejuvenating these
‘power plants’ of the cell. $21K was mobilized and lead directly to a much
larger follow-up project
“Buckyballs & cancer”
[2014] Lead: Dr. K.Moody (Ichor), the Longecity community got very intrigued
about a research paper reporting to extend mouse lifespan with nanosize
C60 ‘buckyballs’. Via crowdsourcing we promoted further independent
investigation
into C60 effects which, as a side effect also prompted some interesting vendor testing data.
Co -Funding
In recent years, LongeCity has strategically offered co-funding to maximize the impact of fundraisers at LIFESPAN.IO
Among the projects supported were:
CellAge [2017];
AgeMeter
[2017]; MitoMouse
[2019]
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In addition to these specific research projects,
LongeCity has
⇒ supported students via small grants,
⇒ established a research partnership and support strategy
and
⇒
taken the same crowdsourcing approach to other community initiatives.