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[reason]

It remains to be seen as to whether Altos Labs is the new, large venture that patient advocates for the treatment of aging have been alluding to cryptically in recent months. It is apparently backed by a number of the high net worth individuals in the Left Coast business and philanthropy communities who are known to have a growing interest in the application of biotechnology to aging. Sadly, recent history suggests we should not expect much from such initiatives. Neither the Ellison Medical Foundation nor Calico Labs have done more than take on more of the same fundamental research into the progression of aging that is carried out at the NIA, at great expense, but no great gain. This is work that will not lead to rejuvenation therapies, and in many cases cannot even in principle achieve much in the matter of treating aging. The path to rejuvenation is to repair the known causes of aging and see what happens as a result. Unfortunately, most of the field spends most of its time trying to decipher how exactly aging proceeds in its complex later stages of cell and tissue dysfunction, without attempting to address those causes. Perhaps Altos Labs will be a different beast, given the apparent focus on cellular reprogramming. We can certainly hope so.

Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner's super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used to make people younger. Milner previously started the glitzy black-tie Breakthrough Prizes, $3 million awards given each year to outstanding physicists, biologists, and mathematicians. But Milner's enthusiasm for science was taking a provocative and specific new direction. As the scientific sessions progressed, experts took the stage to describe radical attempts at "rejuvenating" animals.

That meeting has now led to the formation of an ambitious new anti-aging company called Altos Labs, according to people familiar with the plans. Altos hasn't made an official announcement yet, but it was incorporated in Delaware this year and a securities disclosure filed in California in June indicates the company has raised at least $270 million. Altos is pursuing biological reprogramming technology, a way to rejuvenate cells in the lab that some scientists think could be extended to revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life. The new company, incorporated in the US and in the UK earlier this year, will establish several institutes in places including the Bay Area, San Diego, Cambridge, UK and Japan, and is recruiting a large cadre of university scientists with lavish salaries and the promise that they can pursue unfettered blue-sky research on how cells age and how to reverse that process.

Altos is certain to draw comparisons to Calico Labs, a longevity company announced in 2013 by Google co-founder, Larry Page. Calico also hired elite scientific figures and gave them generous budgets, although it's been questioned whether the Google spinout has made much progress. Calico has also started a lab whose focus is reprogramming; it published its first preprint on the topic this year.

Link: https://www.technolo...living-forever/

View the full article at FightAging

[Steve H]

A new company focused on aging has launched, and it has the backing of Yuri Milner and Jeff Bezos among other wealthy people interested in tackling aging.

Altos Labs is founded to treat aging itself

In recent months, there have been some hints but considerable secrecy surrounding the formation of a new aging research company by some prominent members of our community. Finally, the mystery of this new, large-scale venture has been solved.

Altos Labs has been announced and has the backing of a number of high net worth individuals from business and philanthropy communities. An article appearing in Technology Review revealed some of the details of this new company.

While that publication’s choice of title, Meet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever, makes the common mistake of conflating aging research with living forever or immortality, it also includes some factual information alongside the usual misunderstandings and misinterpretation of what our field is seeking to achieve.

Among the backers of Altos Labs are Russian-born billionaire Yuri Milner along with Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, the former CEO of Amazon who stepped down in July this year.

Could this time be different?

Regular readers will no doubt be familiar with past formations of similar companies, such as the Google-backed Calico Labs, which appeared with a great amount of hype and talk about how Google was taking on death and other such nonsense. While considerable fanfare heralded its arrival, very little in terms of tangible rejuvenation tech has resulted.

Instead, that company has produced a great deal of fundamental research about the biology of aging, which of course has a valid place, but such research does not exactly live up to the expectations that the community had for the company.

That said, the one exception to this was its recently published work with cellular reprogramming, which may prove useful in the future. This is an area of research that we are happy to see Calico exploring, so we hope that the company continues to do so.

Sadly, we have not seen much to be excited about from Google, so the greatly hyped arrival of another organization with big money behind it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

However, as for whether this time could be different, we will answer that with a cautious and somewhat more optimistic yes. The reason for this optimism is that, unlike the fairly vague goals that accompanied Calico’s arrival, Altos Labs has set its sights on a promising target.

Its focus is going to be on cellular reprogramming, which has been shown to reverse epigenetic alterations in mice. We are enthusiastic about the potential of cellular reprogramming, given that it directly targets one of the nine reasons we age.

Some great researchers are involved

Partial cellular reprogramming pioneer, Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, a Spanish biologist at the Salk Institute, is rumoured to be joining Altos Labs. Belmonte famously demonstrated that living animals could have their cells rejuvenated using partial cellular reprogramming in 2016. While Salk has not confirmed this at the time of writing, if he is on the team, that gives us more confidence in this venture leading to something useful.

Steve Horvath, pioneer of DNA methylation clocks, the gold standard for aging biomarkers, is also joining the company. He has a wealth of experience regarding aging biomarkers and has spent years constantly improving and refining aging clocks to support the progress of our field.

Shinya Yamanaka, the co-discoverer of cellular reprogramming, will also be on the scientific advisory board.

There is no doubt that this roster of researchers will continue to grow in the next few months, and we will be interested to see who else joins the team.

Excerpt from Technology Review

Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used to make people younger. Milner previously started the glitzy black-tie Breakthrough Prizes, $3 million awards given each year to outstanding physicists, biologists, and mathematicians. But Milner’s enthusiasm for science was taking a provocative and specific new direction. As the scientific sessions progressed, experts took the stage to describe radical attempts at “rejuvenating” animals.

That meeting has now led to the formation of an ambitious new anti-aging company called Altos Labs, according to people familiar with the plans. Altos hasn’t made an official announcement yet, but it was incorporated in Delaware this year and a securities disclosure filed in California in June indicates the company has raised at least $270 million. Altos is pursuing biological reprogramming technology, a way to rejuvenate cells in the lab that some scientists think could be extended to revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life. The new company, incorporated in the US and in the UK earlier this year, will establish several institutes in places including the Bay Area, San Diego, Cambridge, UK and Japan, and is recruiting a large cadre of university scientists with lavish salaries and the promise that they can pursue unfettered blue-sky research on how cells age and how to reverse that process.

Conclusion

While it is tempting to think of past disappointments and judge this new venture based on it, it is better to wait and see what happens. The company has the right focus and some of the right people, and it certainly has the money. We will be keeping a close eye on Altos Labs and seeing how things develop in the future.

To learn about the promise and potential of cellular reprogramming, check out our article Yamanaka Factors and Making Old Cells Young.

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Please connect with us on social media, like and share our content, and help us build grass-roots support for healthy life extension:

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View the article at lifespan.io

[Decimus]

Unclear if this is the “billion dollar a year” investment we’ve been hearing rumors about, but I would guess this lab (which seems to be structured a lot like Calico in terms of both aging philosophy and methodology for solving aging) will be the primary source of investment for Bezos.

https://www.nextbigf...in-funding.html

[Steve H]

This episode of Lifespan News is about Altos Labs, a new billionare-financed company that is pledged to focus on aging.

Script

There’s a new company focused on solving aging! Investors are reported to include billionaires Yuri Milner and Jeff Bezos. In recent months, there’s been some hints, but considerable secrecy, surrounding the formation of a new aging research company by some prominent members of the bio-rejuvenation community.

Well, it appears the mystery of this new, large-scale venture has finally been solved. The new company is reportedly called ‘Altos Labs’, apparently named after “Los Altos, California” in Silicon Valley where Russian-born Yuri purchased a mansion in 2011 that made national headlines due to the $100 million dollar sale price – which was the most expensive single family home ever purchased in the United States at that time.

It’s important to understand that Altos Labs hasn’t made an official announcement yet, so we’re doing our best here at Lifespan News to get you this video based on current available information and we encourage you to check our sources in the video description as always. An article recently released in MIT Technology Review by Antonio Regalado revealed much of the details of Altos Labs that we’re sharing in this video.

Yuri is one of two confirmed billionaire investors of Altos Labs. Yuri was an early investor in Facebook and has a net worth currently estimated at about $5 billion dollars, according to Forbes. The other billionaire investor is reportedly Jeff, the world’s current wealthiest person with a net worth of about $200 billion dollars, according to Forbes. Jeff founded Amazon in 1994 as CEO and remained CEO until Jeff stepped down to become executive chairman on July 5th, 2021.

A securities disclosure filed in California in June 2021 indicates Altos Labs has raised at least $270 million dollars. Incorporated in Delaware and in the UK earlier in 2021, Altos Labs plans to establish several institutes in places including the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Cambridge, UK and Japan, and is recruiting a large group of university bio-rejuvenation scientists with lavish annual salaries around $1 million dollars plus potentially Altos Labs stock and the promise that they can pursue unfettered blue-sky research on how cells age and how to reverse that process.

Long time longevity enthusiasts will no doubt be familiar with past formations of seemingly similar companies, such as the Google-backed Calico, which appeared with a great amount of hype about how Google was taking on death about 8 years ago in September 2013. I remember I was super excited when the Calico news broke. While considerable fanfare heralded Calico’s arrival, very little in terms of tangible rejuvenation tech has resulted, unfortunately.

Instead, Calico has produced fundamental research about the biology of aging, which of course has a valid place, but such research does not exactly live up to the expectations that the longevity community had for Calico in late 2013, especially considering the enormous resources Calico has spent compared to other much less well funded entities focused on solving aging. That said, the one exception to this was Calico’s recently published work about safer cellular reprogramming, which may prove useful in the future. If you’d like to learn more about this, check the video description to read Lifespan.io’s article by Arkadi Mazin.

So how might Altos Labs be more successful compared to Calico? Well unlike the fairly vague goals that accompanied Calico’s arrival, Altos Labs has set its sights on a promising target: cellular reprogramming, which has been shown to reverse epigenetic alterations in mice which we’ve reported here at Lifespan News; click the card above or check the video description to watch that episode.

Some great researchers are reported to be involved in Altos Labs. Partial cellular reprogramming pioneer, Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, a Spanish biologist at the Salk Institute, is rumoured to be joining Altos Labs. Belmonte famously demonstrated that living animals could have their cells rejuvenated using partial cellular reprogramming in 2016. While Salk has not confirmed this yet to the best of our knowledge, if Belmonte is on the Altos Labs team, that gives us more confidence in this venture leading to something useful.

Steve Horvath, pioneer of DNA methylation clocks, the gold standard for aging biomarkers, is also reportedly joining Altos Labs. Steve has a wealth of experience regarding aging biomarkers and has spent years constantly improving and refining aging clocks to support the progress of our field. Shinya Yamanaka, who shared a 2012 Nobel Prize for the discovery of cellular reprogramming, will reportedly be an unpaid senior scientist and will chair Altos Labs’ scientific advisory board. It’s very likely this roster of researchers will continue to grow in the next few months, so make sure you’re subscribed with the bell turned to all notifications for updates.

While it’s tempting to judge Altos Labs on the current disappointment of Calico, personally, I’m excited about Altos Labs. I can’t wait to see how this story develops because I believe Altos Labs has the right focus and some of the right people, and it certainly has raised a significant amount of money thus far with a realistic path to raise much more money considering the world’s wealthiest person is invested.

Another non-governmental entity that has massive funding and can potentially receive even more massive funding is The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, which was founded in 2015 by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife and Medical Doctor, Priscilla Chan, who are also co-owners and co-CEOs of CZI. The power couple reportedly plan to make an investment in CZI of 99 percent of their wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetime, thus setting up CZI to likely be one of the most well-funded philanthropies in human history and setting an example of philanthrocapitalism.

The CZI’s mission is “to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone”. CZI states, “We support the science and technology that will make it possible to cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the 21st century. We foster collaboration between scientists and engineers, develop new technologies, and build support for basic scientific research.” Here at Lifespan News, we’ve also reported on the potential for Elon Musk’s Neuralink to help improve healthy longevity and Elon said this in 2020, “With effort that’s not too crazy, you could probably stop aging, reverse it if you want”.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Altos Labs, Calico, CZI and Neuralink to see how things develop. I’m very excited to see some of the world’s wealthiest people creating companies focused on solving aging, which is responsible for about 110,000 daily deaths globally on average out of about 150,000 total daily deaths globally on average.

What’s most exciting to you about this episode? I would really like to know what you think in the comments below. To learn more about this story, click the link in the video description for a recent article by Lifespan.io’s Editor in Chief Steve Hill. If you found this video valuable, please consider sharing it. Thanks, and we’ll see ya in the next video.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD

Please connect with us on social media, like and share our content, and help us build grass-roots support for healthy life extension:

Thank You!

View the article at lifespan.io

[Mind]

I am not too optimistic about this effort. Calico has produced next to nothing translational so far.

[Krell]

A scientist behind this research is now at Altos Labs

 

https://www.scienced...20408083901.htm

 

Old skins cells reprogrammed to regain youthful function Findings could lead to targeted approach for treating aging. Date: April 8, 2022 Source: Babraham Institute Summary: Scientists have developed a new technique for rejuvenating skin cells. This technique has allowed researchers to rewind the cellular biological clock by around 30 years according to molecular measures, significantly longer than previous reprogramming methods. The partially rejuvenated cells showed signs of behaving more like youthful cells in experiments simulating a skin wound. This research, although in early stages, could eventually have implications for regenerative medicine, especially if it can be replicated in other cell types.  

Research from the Babraham Institute has developed a method to 'time jump' human skin cells by 30 years, turning back the ageing clock for cells without losing their specialised function. Work by researchers in the Institute's Epigenetics research programme has been able to partly restore the function of older cells, as well as rejuvenating the molecular measures of biological age. The research is published today in the journal eLife and whilst at an early stage of exploration, it could revolutionise regenerative medicine.

 

What is regenerative medicine?

As we age, our cells' ability to function declines and the genome accumulates marks of ageing. Regenerative biology aims to repair or replace cells including old ones. One of the most important tools in regenerative biology is our ability to create 'induced' stem cells. The process is a result of several steps, each erasing some of the marks that make cells specialised. In theory, these stem cells have the potential to become any cell type, but scientists aren't yet able to reliably recreate the conditions to re-differentiate stem cells into all cell types.

 

Turning back time

The new method, based on the Nobel Prize winning technique scientists use to make stem cells, overcomes the problem of entirely erasing cell identity by halting reprogramming part of the way through the process. This allowed researchers to find the precise balance between reprogramming cells, making them biologically younger, while still being able to regain their specialised cell function.

In 2007, Shinya Yamanaka was the first scientist to turn normal cells, which have a specific function, into stem cells which have the special ability to develop into any cell type. The full process of stem cell reprogramming takes around 50 days using four key molecules called the Yamanaka factors. The new method, called 'maturation phase transient reprogramming', exposes cells to Yamanaka factors for just 13 days. At this point, age-related changes are removed and the cells have temporarily lost their identity. The partly reprogrammed cells were given time to grow under normal conditions, to observe whether their specific skin cell function returned. Genome analysis showed that cells had regained markers characteristic of skin cells (fibroblasts), and this was confirmed by observing collagen production in the reprogrammed cells.

 

Age isn't just a number

To show that the cells had been rejuvenated, the researchers looked for changes in the hallmarks of ageing. As explained by Dr Diljeet Gill, a postdoc in Wolf Reik's lab at the Institute who conducted the work as a PhD student: "Our understanding of ageing on a molecular level has progressed over the last decade, giving rise to techniques that allow researchers to measure age-related biological changes in human cells. We were able to apply this to our experiment to determine the extent of reprogramming our new method achieved."

 

Researchers looked at multiple measures of cellular age. The first is the epigenetic clock, where chemical tags present throughout the genome indicate age. The second is the transcriptome, all the gene readouts produced by the cell. By these two measures, the reprogrammed cells matched the profile of cells that were 30 years younger compared to reference data sets.

 

The potential applications of this technique are dependent on the cells not only appearing younger, but functioning like young cells too. Fibroblasts produce collagen, a molecule found in bones, skin tendons and ligaments, helping provide structure to tissues and heal wounds. The rejuvenated fibroblasts produced more collagen proteins compared to control cells that did not undergo the reprogramming process. Fibroblasts also move into areas that need repairing. Researchers tested the partially rejuvenated cells by creating an artificial cut in a layer of cells in a dish. They found that their treated fibroblasts moved into the gap faster than older cells. This is a promising sign that one day this research could eventually be used to create cells that are better at healing wounds.

In the future, this research may also open up other therapeutic possibilities; the researchers observed that their method also had an effect on other genes linked to age-related diseases and symptoms. The APBA2 gene, associated with Alzheimer's disease, and the MAF gene with a role in the development of cataracts, both showed changes towards youthful levels of transcription.

 

The mechanism behind the successful transient reprogramming is not yet fully understood, and is the next piece of the puzzle to explore. The researchers speculate that key areas of the genome involved in shaping cell identity might escape the reprogramming process.

Diljeet concluded: "Our results represent a big step forward in our understanding of cell reprogramming. We have proved that cells can be rejuvenated without losing their function and that rejuvenation looks to restore some function to old cells. The fact that we also saw a reverse of ageing indicators in genes associated with diseases is particularly promising for the future of this work."

 

Professor Wolf Reik, a group leader in the Epigenetics research programme who has recently moved to lead the Altos Labs Cambridge Institute, said: "This work has very exciting implications. Eventually, we may be able to identify genes that rejuvenate without reprogramming, and specifically target those to reduce the effects of ageing. This approach holds promise for valuable discoveries that could open up an amazing therapeutic horizon."