The Rejuvenation Science Institute (ICR) is a Brazilian group engaged in advocacy and research initiatives, in many ways analogous to Lifespan.io in the US. At present, the ICR staff are seeking to reproduce and improve on the study sponsored by Yuvan Research in which a plasma fraction derived from young pigs was used to produce benefits in aged rats. Yuvan Research is somewhere in the process of trying to bring this to the clinic as a therapy.
Independent reproduction of results is important in the scientific community, and more generally in the development of new technologies. The ICR principals recently sent me their pitch for charitable donations to help crowdfund this reproduction study. As they note, they have already set things in motion, conducted a preliminary proof of concept study for the treatment, and are now just waiting on their laboratory rats to age into the right age range for treatment. If you want to support this work, visit the ICR website and donate.
The Rejuvenation Science Institute (ICR) is preparing the reproduction of the seminal Yuvan Research experiment in which rats were rejuvenated with extracellular particles from young pig's blood. The experiment will be carried out in June 2026 and it is partially funded, but we need donations for its complete funding. Back in 2020, when the Yuvan Research principals published the first article about the experiment, it was not reveal what was given to the rats, but in October 2023, the full article was published in Geroscience journal, detailing the whole procedure. So, now, after a lot of hard work to organize the reproduction in Brazil of this experiment, we finally scheduled the beginning of the injections in the rats to June 2026, as we need 25-months-old animals, and we need to wait for them to age.
By the way, our institute has already carried out a small experiment together with the State University of Campinas, commonly known as Unicamp - one of the leading research universities in Latin America, that will also collaborate with ICR in the full experiment of rats rejuvenation - in which we injected the extracellular particles in young rats to assess acute immunogenicity and toxicity, described in our recent scientific publication.
Regarding the funding for the full reproduction of the Yuvan Research experiment, the ICR received the promise of a donation from an institution that will partially cover the costs of the experiment. This donation will cover the costs from Unicamp, the university we are collaborating with. However, the work the ICR will perform still needs to be funded. So we are asking the people interested in the experiment results to become financial collaborators to our institute, which can be done via the donations page of our website.
The ICR is committed to publishing all the results obtained, be them positive or negative. Also, all methods and materials will be published immediately after the experiment, together with those results. Yuvan Research used 6 rats per group, but we will use 10 rats per group, in order for the study to be more robust. Also, by suggestion of professor Marcelo Mori from Unicamp, we will also include a group of young treated rats, to see if we are able to keep young rats young, and not just rejuvenate old rats. And if the rats are rejuvenated (or kept young, regarding the young treated rats), we intend to let them live indefinitely, applying the treatment periodically, as there will be no better evidence of success than extension of life span.
Even though the experiment is still 1 year and 4 months away, we are already working to make all the necessary preparations, both technical and bureaucratic. To follow the preparations for the experiment, you can subscribe to our newsletter.
View the full article at FightAging
