Raise your own lab mouse.

I posted this in the general forums and it got little (no) response there, but i figured the idea had some potential so I will run it by this area too.
Basic overview:
You raise a lab mouse of a certain strain under a certain diet / supplement regimen, and we see who can get theirs to grow the oldest. The idea is that since there haven't been many studies testing rigorous supplementation combined with CR etc, hopefully we would be able to raise some really old mice, and be able to encourage scientists to do some statistically powered studies on rigorous supplementation and CR.

My mouse would be as follows:
Definates:
Positive Environment: Attractive cage with colorful objects that my mouse can run around through.
Handled as an infant: Shown to reduce stress response later in life.
Ethanol intake: Study shows ethanol increases lifespan by 5%.
Niacin: 5% increase in lifespan
Melatonin @ Night: 0-15% increase in lifespan
ALA and ALCAR
Glisodin
Curcumin: Decrease cancer incidence
Calorie Restriction: 50-60%
Resveratrol
Metformin
Fish Oil

Maybes:
Add some superfoods to diet: blueberries, spinach, brocolli, almonds, cocoa, pomegranate, green tea.
Extra vit D.
CoQ10

Btw, I am not sure how resv and metformin synergize with CR if at all.

Here are some good studies here if you would like to consider what you would give your mouse.
If we were able to get mice to live 15-30% more than just calorie restricted mice then I think we could turn some heads. Plus it would be fun.

Objective:
Allow people all over the world to contribute to LE research by raising their own mouse (or mice) under various explanatory variables and controls and document the entire process on a web server. Resulting techniques resulting in mice with long lifespans might be reproduced by other users. Eventually, scientists will use our anecdotal evidence to perform statistically powered studies. This could be used for the Rejuvenation and the standard M-Prize.

Background:
Few studies address the effects of rigorous supplementation on the lifespan of mice. (Here is a good one krillin linked to a while back) Scientists aren't prone to conducting studies with many more than 2 or 3 explanatory variables and with good reason (they are much more expensive). It doesn't make tons of sense that most of us are on CR or taking a CR mimic and on a heavy supplementation regimen and we don't have any mice studies to support the benefits of cumulative supplementation. Perhaps studies of mice on CR, with heavy supplementation, in positive environments etc..  may result in non-additive life extension benefits as multiple aging pathways are being hit.

Why decentralized?
I personally would be much more inclined to raise my own mouse than donate 1000$ for the following reasons:
1) I will feel like i personally contributed to aging research. (I won't be bragging in a bar 200 years in the future about donating money, but I might just brag about raising the first 10 year old mouse)
2) Having pets is fun (especially if you have a kid to take care of it).
3) Individuals are going to test a much broader range of experimental variables than a single lab could.
4) This setup should follow some similiar rules as markets do: Most people will likely try to refine what is working while some try much more radical procedure.
5) Even with a reasonably small personal cost (of 500$ ish), someone can raise a mouse and really feel like they contributed.
6) If you get a mouse to live a long time, face it, you are going to feel pretty cool.
7) You get to test out your own regimen.
8) There are lots and lots and lots of people in the world.

This idea is in its infancy, but I am personally very serious about it if it recieves lots of support here. If there is support, I would love to help in designing a webserver and raise a mouse.

I would like to learn how to get a "mouse certificate", so that I could get a job at a lab like Southern Research.
They had an ad in the paper before but it said "mouse certificate required" What is that?
I'm looking for a "Southern Research" type lab in Austin or Phoenix.


How would you validate the control group from the experiential group?

I work in a microbiology lab and I have to get recertification from the American Proficiency Institute every six months for my job.
What type of certification/ verification are you using for your mouse experiments?


Good luck with your mouse project!

How would you validate the control group from the experiential group?

Well there would be no control group per say, we would all need to use a well studied strain of mouse.

What type of certification/ verification are you using for your mouse experiments?

Well perhaps im not being completely clear, the idea is to have lots of people test lots of different strategies for life-extension. If people had strategies that produced really old mice then more people would try that strategy and validate it or modify it.... The best strategy would evolve until we were raising some really old mice.
Where as the experiments don't have any controls per se, we would only be able to compare them to known average lifespan for what ever strain of mice we decide to use.

This strategy would not be good for detecting small gains if lifespan, but in the event that the combination of all the vast approaches for lifespan extension result in significant life extension then we could probably have some really old mice...

The general premise is that there aren't many studies that combine all or most of the life-extending practices that many of us on the forums here use. I certainly want to believe that by combining supplementation and diet I am adding up the small lifespan extension percentages of all the contributing parts of my regimen. The question though is will it work in mice, and as far as I know the question hasn't been answered, and this way seems to be the best way to begin to find out and possibly convince some people to do a study.

Good luck with your mouse project!

Thank you sir.

Neurosail that would be great! (come to Austin we have a large cryonics social group--not as large as Canada's yet, bet we are working on it )

Oh and read Aubrey's book before starting with your mouse.

(shouldn't be hard to get a mouse certificate!)

Neurosail, I can send mine to you when I'm done if you don't already have one, cause I owe you

Would you happen to know the shorts lived strain of mice. It would be helpful if we could find a strain that naturally lives less than 6 months. It would not only reduce the costs, but if one supplement strategy fails we could quickly move on to another.

From a quick search on Google the shortest lived mammal is a tiny shrew, but they still live 1 to 1.5 years. On top of this these short lived shrews only short-lived because of some idiosyncratic pathology unrelated to general aging. Would these even be good test subjects.

From a quick search on Google the shortest lived mammal is a  tiny shrew, but they still  live  1 to 1.5 years. On top of this these short lived shrews only short-lived because of some idiosyncratic pathology unrelated to general aging. Would these even be good test subjects.

Link? What be interesting to see if that pathway could be "fixed"

Would you happen to know the shorts lived strain of mice.  It would be helpful if we could find a strain that naturally lives less than 6 months.  It would not only reduce the costs, but if one supplement strategy  fails we could  quickly move on to another.

This is my concern with mouse longevity studies. Let's suppose we find a slurry of compounds that allow a mouse to live 3x as long as the longest lived mouse today? That's nearly an 18 year lifespan. Time is our most precious commodity. We need to run tests at a far more rapid pace than this if we're going to see anything in our lifetime.

Positive Environment: Attractive cage with colorful objects that my mouse can run around through.

I'm going to try this with my cube at work.

Oh and read Aubrey's book before starting with your mouse

Neurosail, I can send mine to you when I'm done if you don't already have one, cause I owe you

What did I do this time? [huh]

I got Aubrey's book so thanks for the offer.... [thumb]

to gain time, buy old mice: say 18 month years old :
http://www.methusela...hread.php?t=615

- from the NIA/Jackson laboratories for example
- not a "short lived" strain otherwise you don't know whether you counter act the disease/reason why it is shortlived, or really obtain smthg interesting
- not much older, eg not 22 month, older otherwise they may be ill, and also you pay the fact that a fraction dies between 18 and 22 months

good luck

Edited by AgeVivo, 09 April 2008 - 09:48 PM.

I believe that you can compete in the original M-Prize as a normal citizen which would certainly make raising your mouse a bit more fun. (You must be doing a published study to compete in the Rejuvenation Prize)

Once I move out of the Frat House I will probably get a couple of mice as pets see if I can take a shot at the worlds longest lived mouse.