2 replies to this topic

[kmoody]

The SENS Foundation Academic Initiative (AI) has recently named its six scholarship recipients, including Immortality Institute Scholarship Awardees Tobiloba Oni and Kamil Pabis, who received $500.00 each for their contributions to longevity science.

As we proceed into 2010, SENS Foundation CEO Michael Kope and I would like to thank you all for your steadfast support of our growing student program. Your commitment to the AI from the beginning has allowed it to grow into a mature and functional research entity, targeting undergraduate, graduate, and medical students across the globe. We are pleased to announce that the AI will be starting 2010 with an operating budget from SENS Foundation of $40,000, a 1000% increase over our initial funding from Methuselah Foundation only a year and a half ago. This impressive growth may be attributed to the quality research being conducted by our students and the extraordinary efforts of our dedicated volunteer staff. However, none of it would have been possible without the sustained seed funding provided by the Immortality Institute since we began. The Immortality Institute has long prided itself on being a catalyst of longevity science, supporting high-risk ideas to obtain maximum impact. If you haven't embraced the AI as such a "maximum impact" success story yet, by the end of this year you most certainly will. We now have the resources to begin targeting major universities across the US and abroad, and our officers are currently drafting plans to establish our presence at such locations. We plan to move at least 6 new projects into the lab this year, and begin numerous literature review projects focused around the research aims of SENS Foundation. For further information, please visit the SENS Foundation website at www.sens.org, or contact me at kelsey.moody@sens.org. Cheers to the years to come!

Kelsey Moody
Academic Coordinator
SENS Foundation

[Da55id]

Congratulations Kelsey - You are to be highly commended for your dedication to this concept and for its growing success! I am proud that the donors of Methuselah Foundation were able to help you plant this seed that will bear fantastic fruit in benefit to us all in coming years.

Cheers,
Dave

The SENS Foundation Academic Initiative (AI) has recently named its six scholarship recipients, including Immortality Institute Scholarship Awardees Tobiloba Oni and Kamil Pabis, who received $500.00 each for their contributions to longevity science.

As we proceed into 2010, SENS Foundation CEO Michael Kope and I would like to thank you all for your steadfast support of our growing student program. Your commitment to the AI from the beginning has allowed it to grow into a mature and functional research entity, targeting undergraduate, graduate, and medical students across the globe. We are pleased to announce that the AI will be starting 2010 with an operating budget from SENS Foundation of $40,000, a 1000% increase over our initial funding from Methuselah Foundation only a year and a half ago. This impressive growth may be attributed to the quality research being conducted by our students and the extraordinary efforts of our dedicated volunteer staff. However, none of it would have been possible without the sustained seed funding provided by the Immortality Institute since we began. The Immortality Institute has long prided itself on being a catalyst of longevity science, supporting high-risk ideas to obtain maximum impact. If you haven't embraced the AI as such a "maximum impact" success story yet, by the end of this year you most certainly will. We now have the resources to begin targeting major universities across the US and abroad, and our officers are currently drafting plans to establish our presence at such locations. We plan to move at least 6 new projects into the lab this year, and begin numerous literature review projects focused around the research aims of SENS Foundation. For further information, please visit the SENS Foundation website at www.sens.org, or contact me at kelsey.moody@sens.org. Cheers to the years to come!

Kelsey Moody
Academic Coordinator
SENS Foundation

[kismet]

I am very thankful for the scholarship I received. To give a short overview:

How did I benefit?
Despite the outstanding social wellfare system in Austria, most students have to take up side jobs. Job opportunities, however, are very limited for undergraduates in the first few semesters. So most students are forced to work in fields unrelated to their studies. Scholarships like this one enable us to spend more time on our choosen field of study and gain valuable experience that we otherwise couldn't. 
Coming from a not so wealthy (although, not actually poor) family of Polish immigrants I am all the more grateful.

What am I doing or planning for the future?
Currently I'm studying molecular biology (3rd semester). During the first semester at university, and before starting the review, I had not much of an idea, which research direction I'd like to pursue, other than that I was interested in health and biogerontology in general. I still am, but working on the review about vascular calcification, I read up on other releated issues, esp. vascular aging, and decided on a new research focus. I realised that in the future I would like to focus on vascular aging in general and also aging of the extracellular matrix.

One day I would like to work with research teams on vascular calcification, matrix alterations or other pathologies of the vasculature and on solutions to those problems in the spirit of SENS, i.e. collaborative work on regression and reversal of pathologies, not just disease-slowing.  I hope to finish an initial review soon and do further study and lab work in the coming years.
Interestingly, although, I am convinced by the so called 'engineering' approach, the review opened my eyes to a world beyond SENS, as calcification is by no means considered a classical part of SENS. Potential solutions to the problem of vascular calcification are within reach, so that makes the area especially interesting.

That said, I look forward to further collaboration with SENSFAI & imminst.