Founded with the aim of financing early-stage longevity research through innovative methods, VitaDAO funded its first opening project, The Longevity Molecule, just months after the DAO’s formation.
The Longevity Molecule is led by Morten Scheibye Knudsen in cooperation with Copenhagen’s (Denmark) Scheibye-Knudsen Lab. This project plans to analyze data from 4.8 million individuals and 1.04 billion prescriptions covering a period of 50 years to examine survival rates over a long period.
The Longevity Molecule Project unwrapped
It is estimated that within the next 100 years, over 20% of the world’s population will be at least 65 years old. This socioeconomic challenge means that longevity and lifetime health improvement have become priorities.
The plan is to conduct research that will deliver vital insights into more than ten FDA-approved medications. After this is done, Scheibye-Knudsen Lab aims to improve, repurpose, and rework the formulas for the three most promising candidates, optimizing their structures in ways that increase the length and quality of human lifespan. The team behind this comprehensive project also wishes to create these medications at a low cost and with rapid production.
Project stages
The Longevity Molecule project is planned for three distinct stages that cover animal pre-clinical trials and human clinical trials.
The initial stage of the project will involve fruit flies and human cells in order to explore the identified drug’s effect on cellular aging. Utilizing deep learning technology from Tracked.bio, the results of thousands of test subjects will be analyzed simultaneously. It’s estimated that this initial phase will take around two years and will cost in the region of $500,000.
By undertaking compound optimization in cell lines and by using mouse models, the team will analyze how various features of age, such as hearing loss are affected. In addition, the Longevity Molecule team plans to record data on such aspects as toxicology, tolerability, solubility, and efficiency. In total, it’s estimated that this phase will take around 1.5 years, with costs yet to be estimated.
If pre-clinical trials 1 and 2 are successful, the Longevity Molecule team plans to proceed to human trials. To date, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen is involved in three aging-related trials, and the team believes that clinical trials could be a possibility. The team estimates that this phase will take around two years to be completed and will lead to significant results.
VitaDAO’s involvement
In support of The Longevity Molecule’s project, VitaDAO has allocated $250,000 in funding to the team, which is approximately half of the estimated budget for the first round of pre-clinical trials. In exchange, VitaDAO has acquired an IP-NFT of the results of this longevity research, giving it ownership that can later be used to fund further activities. The team behind VitaDAO believes that such IP-NFTs could provide an alternative to traditional patents and deliver a much-needed method of investment into early-stage research projects that would otherwise be unable to acquire vital funding, delivering much-needed stimulus to the sector.
