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Laser Ablation of Lipofuscin


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#1 Mind

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 09:00 PM


Proposal attached. Research would be under direction of the SENS foundation.

Just some quick thoughts to start things out. I like the idea. It seems relatively easy to test this theory and get actionable results in a short time period (8 months).

Drawback: The price is a bit steep for Imminst. Not out of our reach, but the grant it is either 19% or 26% of our current funds.

Commentary about Schooler's UABBA presentation

Another Imminst discussion about photobiomodulation

Attached Files



#2 Shepard

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 09:10 PM

Thanks for the proposal. The Recorders deadline for this item is May 7.

All: please post any questions, comments, and rate this project idea.

Edited by Shepard, 21 April 2009 - 09:11 PM.


#3 DJS

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 10:51 PM

Any way we can get this file in a PDF?

#4 maestro949

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 11:10 PM

It would only take a few of these projects to drain the budget to zero. Should we consider only funding these projects partially as matching grants?

This has the benefit of forcing the researchers to look to more traditional funding sources first, which in itself is a means of validating we are not throwing money at junk science (not to suggest that this is what this is) as the leadership here isn't necessarily qualified to judge whether these scientific proposals have any merit.

#5 DJS

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 11:29 PM

Question: Would the laser potentially have resale value?

the leadership here isn't necessarily qualified to judge whether these scientific proposals have any merit.


Well, leadership does have scientific advisors...the big problem there is all sorts of conflict of interest. :)

#6 DJS

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 11:47 PM

Okay, I've had a chance to skim over the pdf. The laser isn't very expensive (in a relative sense) so there's little incentive to try reselling it.

However, if I am correct, a lot of the equipment will be reusable and kept in Tempe (I'm assuming that's where this research will be conducted) after the laser ablation experiment is concluded? If so, this proposal could also be seen as a long term investment in research.

#7 Nason

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 09:03 AM

Hi - this is Nason Schooler. I came up with this idea and would be doing the experiments. I'm sure we could resell the laser on ebay for well over $1,000.00 Also the optics equipment will have pretty good resale value. This is indeed an investment in future research as well. All of the hardware will be critical to future experiments. The cell culture equipment and scope can and will also be used for other experiments at the Tempe facility. Feel free to poke me with other questions if you have them...

#8 caliban

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 04:45 PM

Very preliminary first impression and questions.


SCIENCE: Its a completely daft idea - but that is great, in keeping with the Imminst 'niche'. People don't really seem to understand LLLT either. Personally, I can't imagine that you'll get any effective deep tissue penetration. Laser ablation is successful in the eye and on the skin where you have easy access and acess issues are why people want to use nanoparticles as (laser)inducible agents. Regrettably, this project will skirt around the issue by lasering cells in the dish, but I fully accept that, as a proof of principle, this may be a useful first step. Maybe you could check if you are able to penetrate (porcine) skin explants and make a difference to cells placed just underneath?
(Btw the underlying assumption that a broken-up plaque = easily digestible plaque is also doubtful, but that is not a useful discussion to have at this stage imo). I'd like to see some details on the assessment. What software is used to evaluate lipofuscin destruction? What is the source of the "fibroblast cells"? I think the proposal scans ok otherwise. We can certainly run it past specialist reviewers, however one would just hope to take for granted that an outfit like the SENS foundation is quite capable of doing that by itself.

COST: The prices quoted (those I can put into perspective, I don't know anything about lasers) are certainly very low. Can you really get a working cabinet at that price? What happened to the microsope in the second funding variant?
However, I think it is very difficult for the Institute to fund project-specific equipments grants, especially if they are of such basic nature. Maybe the laser needs to be bought but why can't one just use a friendly scientists lab? Imo, if you want to start a basic laboratory from scratch, the application should focus on that, rather than conflate it with a project application. The full costing would likely mean a significant contraction in Imminst finances. For the Institute to take such a big hit, a referendum and further discussion may be in order. Also, Imminst is not really in the business of funding 'big players' - we don't have enough money to make any difference in that area for starters. It may come as a surprise to the community that the SENS foundation is not able to fund such a -in the sceme of things- small project itself.

Personnel: Costs are ok from our end, but Mr Schooler does not appear to have any cell culture experience? It would be good to see a CV. Will there be training and supervision? What does that mean: "The project will nevertheless begin 5/1/2009, lasting a total of 8 months"? If Imminst funding should come online in July, what happening in the interval? Note that if you want general IP on this idea (rather than on specific wavelegths, pluse combinations) you better file now.

#9 brokenportal

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 05:47 PM

This sort of way to get in on the science seems like the perfect way with the perfect kind of price for this time. We can add this to our resume which should help draw in more people, more minds that think, fund, network and all the rest, in that direction. We can also work with this effort in many possible ways in the future, sending experiment proposals to it for consideration and potentially helping to build on to it with more funds.

From what I can see, $10,000 to $30,000 could go towards science like this, and then I would like to see the other half be tentatively reserved for marketing projects. Thats just my take on it though.

Like people have been saying, we trust the minds of our advisors, our specialized directors, the SENS foundation, and we all have at least a reasonable grasp of what is going on. The project sounds fantastic. I had been wondering if this equipment would be harnessed to its greatest potential for projects that could in theory end aging and not just suppress its symptoms and or help to understand the process better for the sake of it, and it sounds like that is the case. Im sure we all expected it to be, Im much more confident that it is now.

Ill continue to follow everybodies reasoning, but from what I can see we should go ahead with some sort of funding for this project. Like Maestro was writing about, I think some sort of matching offer is the best way to go too. Like for example, maybe $10,000, but $15,000 if an additional $15,000 can be raised by x day, or something like that.

#10 Nason

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 07:06 PM

Very preliminary first impression and questions.


SCIENCE: Its a completely daft idea - but that is great, in keeping with the Imminst 'niche'. People don't really seem to understand LLLT either. Personally, I can't imagine that you'll get any effective deep tissue penetration. Laser ablation is successful in the eye and on the skin where you have easy access and acess issues are why people want to use nanoparticles as (laser)inducible agents. Regrettably, this project will skirt around the issue by lasering cells in the dish, but I fully accept that, as a proof of principle, this may be a useful first step. Maybe you could check if you are able to penetrate (porcine) skin explants and make a difference to cells placed just underneath?


This is getting a little ahead of myself, but the penetration depth problem has already been solved. Deeper tissues are routinely treated with lasers percutaneously (needles with fiber-optic tips are injected to the site to be treated), which works very well in deep brain tumors, liver, lung, etc. All tissues at all depths can, and are already being reached with lasers in a clinical setting. Here is a selection of references demonstrating this technique:

Thermal therapy of canine cerebral tumors using a 980 nm diode laser with MR temperature-sensitive imaging feedback. Kangasniemi M, McNichols RJ, Bankson JA, Gowda A, Price RE, Hazle JD. Lasers Surg Med. 2004;35(1):41-50. PMID: 15278927

Real-time magnetic resonance-guided laser thermal therapy for focal metastatic brain tumors. Carpentier A, McNichols RJ, Stafford RJ, Itzcovitz J, Guichard JP, Reizine D, Delaloge S, Vicaut E, Payen D, Gowda A, George B. Neurosurgery. 2008 Jul;63(1 Suppl 1):ONS21-8; discussion ONS28-9. PMID: 18728600

Feasibility study of particle-assisted laser ablation of brain tumors in orthotopic canine model. Schwartz JA, Shetty AM, Price RE, Stafford RJ, Wang JC, Uthamanthil RK, Pham K, McNichols RJ, Coleman CL, Payne JD. Cancer Res. 2009 Feb 15;69(4):1659-67. Epub 2009 Feb 10. PMID: 19208847

Laser-induced thermotherapy for lung tissue--evaluation of two different internally cooled application systems for clinical use. Ritz JP, Lehmann KS, Mols A, Frericks B, Knappe V, Buhr HJ, Holmer C. Lasers Med Sci. 2008 Apr;23(2):195-202. Epub 2007 Jun 29. PMID: 17599236


Furthermore, since the energy required to heat non-pigmented tissue is many orders of magnitude higher than that needed to destroy pigment granules, we will be able to greatly increase the laser power for deeper tissues, once overlying tissues have been safely cleared of pigment granules. The experiment I really want to do is treating two-inch thick steaks from old cows or pigs (which will contain lipofuscin granules throughout the cells) to find the maximum practical treatment depths without using needles. I had that in the proposal initially, but John thought it would be best to just deal with cell culture first.

(Btw the underlying assumption that a broken-up plaque = easily digestible plaque is also doubtful, but that is not a useful discussion to have at this stage imo).


Laser removal of tattoos, pigmented lesions (including age spots which are all lipofuscin), and lipofuscin-loaded RPE cells in macular degeneration all have shown that the granules, once disintegrated with the laser, are safely and efficiently cleared from the system. The body is set up to do this kind of thing already, and does it quite efficiently. I can provide more refs here if needed, but some in the proposal demonstrate this effect.


I'd like to see some details on the assessment. What software is used to evaluate lipofuscin destruction? What is the source of the "fibroblast cells"?


The quantization of granule number and size is easily done with a number of software packages. My favorite is the new quantization and analysis feature in Adobe Photoshop, which works quite nicely. Basically you take a number of sample images of treated and sham-treated cells, load them into Photoshop, and do your quantization analysis using the exact same settings for all images, to get an accurate comparison.

Right now we have WS1 (cat. # CRL-1502) and HFL1 (cat. # CCL-153) fibroblasts (originally from ATCC - a kind gift from my former lab). They are from human foreskin and lung, respectively.


COST: The prices quoted (those I can put into perspective, I don't know anything about lasers) are certainly very low. Can you really get a working cabinet at that price? What happened to the microsope in the second funding variant?


The scope is in the second variant too - it's just buried just above the 4-pulse setup equipment. Sorry for the poor formatting! ;) Yes, the prices are as low as we can get them we're scraping bottom here just to get this done with the bare minimum. The laser price is insanely cheap - thanks to the Chinese! Lasers made elsewhere are in the tens of thousands of dollars, but this one will do nicely for initial (and even later) experiments. We'll have to build the cabinet. John already built one using an upside-down rubbermaid tub and a HEPA filter, which works pretty well.

However, I think it is very difficult for the Institute to fund project-specific equipments grants, especially if they are of such basic nature. Maybe the laser needs to be bought but why can't one just use a friendly scientists lab? Imo, if you want to start a basic laboratory from scratch, the application should focus on that, rather than conflate it with a project application. The full costing would likely mean a significant contraction in Imminst finances. For the Institute to take such a big hit, a referendum and further discussion may be in order. Also, Imminst is not really in the business of funding 'big players' - we don't have enough money to make any difference in that area for starters. It may come as a surprise to the community that the SENS foundation is not able to fund such a -in the sceme of things- small project itself.


As far as I understand it, SENS funding is stretched to the limit as it is. We're in a fairly bad situation as John had to axe the funding for the entire cell culture facility in order to get the IBG budget down to what the foundation could fund, with the understanding that we would leech off of existing labs. For this project, if we get another lab involved then they have to be included in IP rights, so John wants to keep it all in-house to make sure it's patent-able and potential future investors will have a reason to fund clinical trials. I'm not sure about all the motivating factors, as I'm not involved in administrative decisions for IBG, but that is my understanding of the facts at this point.

Personnel: Costs are ok from our end, but Mr Schooler does not appear to have any cell culture experience? It would be good to see a CV. Will there be training and supervision? What does that mean: "The project will nevertheless begin 5/1/2009, lasting a total of 8 months"? If Imminst funding should come online in July, what happening in the interval? Note that if you want general IP on this idea (rather than on specific wavelegths, pluse combinations) you better file now.


I spent the last 2.5 years doing cell culture for my recent MS degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from University of Louisville. I have extensive experience with the Fibroblasts we will be using, as well as a number of other cell types, as well as various viability assays, cell counting, colony formation, etc. Furthermore, I have 9 months worth of experience in Laser use, setup and alignment of optics, laser treatment of biological specimens, etc. Also, I spent the last 6 months selecting and purchasing equipment for, and setting up a Biology lab in Minnesota, so I have experience in this area as well. SENS funding can take up the slack for May and June, so I can start working full time right away. John tells me we need some good results before we apply for a patent, to convince investors to fund the patent application process - I'm not very knowledgeable about this end of things so I'm taking his word for it... He says it's too late for general IP since I've already given a presentation on the technique at UABBA.

#11 Mind

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 09:47 PM

At the recorders meeting we brainstormed about maybe creating a matching grant, if members thought the price tag was too high. Maybe we put up $7,500 and match dollar for dollar.

#12 lunarsolarpower

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 10:56 PM

Who is the target market for this process? Old people? People with a particular degenerative condition? What will ablating lipofuscin mean in the life of a person who has it done?

Regarding the intellectual property I suggest that if there is any interest in that side of things someone make the effort to become educated on how it works. Provisional patents can be your friend when you need to make public announcement of something but want to keep your options open - at least for a year. Getting a full non-provisional patent seems to cost ~$10,000 including attorney's fees and prior art searches. Pressman's book appears to be the bible of this field for those who wish to avoid paying an attorney.

I'm definitely a fan of therapeutic lasers. It would be cool to see Imminst/IBG come up with a new and useful application.

#13 Nason

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 11:16 PM

Who is the target market for this process? Old people? People with a particular degenerative condition? What will ablating lipofuscin mean in the life of a person who has it done?

Regarding the intellectual property I suggest that if there is any interest in that side of things someone make the effort to become educated on how it works. Provisional patents can be your friend when you need to make public announcement of something but want to keep your options open - at least for a year. Getting a full non-provisional patent seems to cost ~$10,000 including attorney's fees and prior art searches. Pressman's book appears to be the bible of this field for those who wish to avoid paying an attorney.

I'm definitely a fan of therapeutic lasers. It would be cool to see Imminst/IBG come up with a new and useful application.


Thanks - I'll check out the book too. As I understand it, the provisional patent basically forces you to come up with something concrete in 1 year. If you do not, then it's not longer patent-able by anybody.

The target market is anyone. Obviously people with very few lipofuscin granules (say 25-35 year-olds) would be fantastic - a few treatments knock their lipofuscin back to where it was when they were 10 (virtually nonexistent), and 10 years later you just treat them all over again ad nauseum. I think 80-year-olds on up would require many, many small, localized treatments - say one in a different location every month - covering as much as a decade before we got their lipofuscin down to the 10-year-old level. The problem with that is, how many cells are we going to have to kill to get there, and can the 80-year-old handle losing that many? For younger people they lose fewer cells (because few have any pigment), and their tissues are great at replacing the ones they do lose.

Also, people with Batten disease and other related lysosomal storage disorders will potentially benefit. We're not sure how it would help each specific pathology, and we're not sure how much it will help aging - because nobody has been able to get rid of lipofuscin so they could find out. If you check some of my references about Brunk's mitochondrial-lysosomal axis theory of aging, it stands to reason that the prognosis for a lipofuscin-free individual could potentially be very, very good - resulting in a tremendous increase in maximum lifespan. But again, we'll never really know until we try...

#14 lunarsolarpower

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Posted 23 April 2009 - 11:54 PM

Thanks - I'll check out the book too. As I understand it, the provisional patent basically forces you to come up with something concrete in 1 year. If you do not, then it's not longer patent-able by anybody.

The target market is anyone. Obviously people with very few lipofuscin granules (say 25-35 year-olds) would be fantastic - a few treatments knock their lipofuscin back to where it was when they were 10 (virtually nonexistent), and 10 years later you just treat them all over again ad nauseum. I think 80-year-olds on up would require many, many small, localized treatments - say one in a different location every month - covering as much as a decade before we got their lipofuscin down to the 10-year-old level. The problem with that is, how many cells are we going to have to kill to get there, and can the 80-year-old handle losing that many? For younger people they lose fewer cells (because few have any pigment), and their tissues are great at replacing the ones they do lose.

Also, people with Batten disease and other related lysosomal storage disorders will potentially benefit. We're not sure how it would help each specific pathology, and we're not sure how much it will help aging - because nobody has been able to get rid of lipofuscin so they could find out. If you check some of my references about Brunk's mitochondrial-lysosomal axis theory of aging, it stands to reason that the prognosis for a lipofuscin-free individual could potentially be very, very good - resulting in a tremendous increase in maximum lifespan. But again, we'll never really know until we try...


It sounds like a working therapy would open a giant box of possible study targets. I wonder if specific steps would need to be taken to handle the metals released by breaking down lipofuscin. Some online sources indicate that age spots are either made of lipofuscin or serve as indicator of its levels in the body.

There's also something known as "perpetually patent pending" which seems to work great for marketing purposes but doesn't do anything if you're looking to license your technology or prevent others from making use of your ideas. It basically involves filing a new provisional patent application with slightly different parameters just before each previous one is set to expire. Probably not useful in this case though.

Edited by lunarsolarpower, 23 April 2009 - 11:56 PM.


#15 maestro949

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Posted 24 April 2009 - 01:54 PM

Also, people with Batten disease and other related lysosomal storage disorders will potentially benefit.


If there are particular diseases that this research could be applied to, why not go after traditional grant offering bodies in their respective areas and distance yourself from the perceived quackery? One of the issues that I see with aligning yourself with funding sources that mention "immortality", "cryonics" or promise utopian returns on investment in their proposals is the legitimacy factor. As soon as one of those negative buzzwords are hit, the proposal is going to be sent immediately to the trash bin. If Imminst does funds your research, your work will likely get stuck at the next stages of funding and someone else without this baggage will take your ideas to fruition. The current reality is that that majority of philanthropists will not go near anything that even smells of quackery and should your research get you to the doorsteps of the biotech, VCs will have even less appetite.

#16 Nason

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Posted 24 April 2009 - 04:47 PM

Also, people with Batten disease and other related lysosomal storage disorders will potentially benefit.


If there are particular diseases that this research could be applied to, why not go after traditional grant offering bodies in their respective areas and distance yourself from the perceived quackery? One of the issues that I see with aligning yourself with funding sources that mention "immortality", "cryonics" or promise utopian returns on investment in their proposals is the legitimacy factor. As soon as one of those negative buzzwords are hit, the proposal is going to be sent immediately to the trash bin. If Imminst does funds your research, your work will likely get stuck at the next stages of funding and someone else without this baggage will take your ideas to fruition. The current reality is that that majority of philanthropists will not go near anything that even smells of quackery and should your research get you to the doorsteps of the biotech, VCs will have even less appetite.


This therapy will be useless to treat lysosomal storage disorders if it kills cells. In an LSD patient, ALL cells in a given tissue are gorged with pigment; as opposed to aging, in which lipofuscin is sparsely distributed, especially in the young and middle-aged. When and if we discover that lipofuscin can be removed while keeping the host cells alive, I agree this would be a potential avenue of funding.

As far as Imminst funding robbing us of ethos, resulting in someone else taking the ideas to fruition - such a scenario is perfectly alright with me. My concern is to discover if this technique can be used to postpone aging. If indeed it can, my only goal is to get it out there so people can use it. I don't really care who ends up doing the legwork, as long as that happens, and people get to live longer.

I think there is another side to that coin - demonstrating that this technique can extend the lifespan of a model organism (say nematode worms for example) would engender a pretty high degree of legitimacy to the funding institution - no matter who they were.

#17 caliban

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Posted 24 April 2009 - 06:26 PM

Thanks a lot for your quick responses Nason, a word about the process: at this stage the "Recorders" are gathering some informal feedback.
On deadline, the team will decide to whether to submit the proposal to the board -- if it does, the board will have to establish a position on further review and potential funding.

I'll have to study your responses a bit more, two quick points:
- Percutaneous needles don't strike me as a sustainable systemic anti aging treatment. I think you should try the steak. :)
- If SENS wants to fund activities from May 1st, thats great, but I very much doubt that there can be decision on ImmInst funding by that date.

#18 Mind

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Posted 24 April 2009 - 07:20 PM

One of the issues that I see with aligning yourself with funding sources that mention "immortality", "cryonics"....is the legitimacy factor


Results are results. If lipofuscin can be destroyed/eliminated from the body through this approach, money will fall from the sky on Nason's head. VC's will fist-fight over the next round of funding.

I fully understand the point you are making maestro, but at some point we have to stand up and say "we are legit" - we are going to fund solutions to aging, and we don't care what the hell anyone thinks about it. It is 2009. Radical change is afoot. If the couch-potato-hollywood-worshipping-beer-drinking public doesn't get it....too bad for them.

#19 tunt01

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Posted 24 April 2009 - 07:58 PM

i have not read this proposal and am not an expert on lipofuscin. i haven't the slightest idea, if this is an amazing proposal or a bad one. but i did help run a $50 M venture capital fund. i made several investments, have a couple successful exits (winning investments), and have dealt with a lot of major funds like Tenaya (old Lehman VC), Pequot, Apax Ventures, etc.

so here are my 2 cents for your consideration:

- as a finance person with limited technical expertise, we always hired outside experts to evaluate a proposal/potential investment.

- as a finance/accounting guy, i would scope the valuation/operating budget, the addressable market of the company's product, potential margins, corporate structure, legal issues (intellectual property, insurance, etc.), evaluate executives, all the things involved in structuring a business. VCs are attracted to large markets, so I don't know how many people get LSD per year and what their capacity is to pay for treatment (per insurance coverage), but that is something to look into, if you honestly believe this is a legitimate therapy for people. i can try to help w/ this if you want.

- but the technical expertise in terms of the quality of the product/software/idea/product concept I always had supporting data from outside experts. I invested in a wireless semiconductor chip company once and hired a guy from Qualcomm to evaluate it. he got a consulting fee. we paid him $5,000 for a weekend spent w/ the company and a 5 page write-up on his thoughts. that was for a $3 million dollar investment.

obviously you are dealing with a different budget, but if you are going to spend $10,000+ on a project, it must be worthwhile to give some expert in lipofuscin $500 to sit down and read this guy's proposal, spend 30 mins writing feedback/follow-up questions for the proposal writer, and then evaluate the proposal writer's response and make a formal recommendation (yes this is a good idea, but here are the risks A, B and C. No this is a terrible idea, but it could work if you get lucky with X, Y, and Z., etc.). it's worth spending the $500 to make sure the $10 K is well spent.

i'm not trying to stop anything from happening, but in my experience the best decisions are ones that are very well researched, whether it's buying a car for $15,000 or investing $15 million in a company.

so two final thoughts:

- it's about networking... you ping aubrey or w/e gurus you know who know friends who know people involved in lipofuscin, and ask them for 2 hrs of their time to evaluate the doc for a small nominal fee. there is a list of scientists in some thread here. blast email all those guys, the advisors or w/e. ask these people for other recommendations for research project ideas that could be funded, maybe co-fund a project with SENS.

- a lot of the major contributing factors to this project's success is not determined by the experiment itself. it's determined by the upfront research/ideas/work/due diligence (both yours and Nason) before the experiment is even carried out. i'm sure Nason has put a lot of time and effort into his field of expertise and has spent a lot of time thinking about this idea. that is part of it. a lot of ideas are a fluke and 99 out of 100 early stage research experiments will fail and never attract any VC investment money. but the ones that do are well crafted and thought out, and rarely due to luck. Tom Siebel didn't walk out of Oracle and start the largest CRM software business becuz he was lucky, he knew what customers wanted and why they were not being served appropriately by current products.


sorry if this got a little preachy and feel free to ignore all of it... just felt i should drop a word in. hope it all goes well, no matter what the decision is...

Edited by prophets, 24 April 2009 - 08:01 PM.


#20 Mariusz

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Posted 24 April 2009 - 11:51 PM

Proposal attached. Research would be under direction of the SENS foundation.


Last time I checked, SENS/MFoundation, had millions of dollars, and now they don't have measly 15k to fund this project, yet, they will be directing it? What's in it for us?
We can't even sponsor a cheap, in comparision to that proposal, FAH prize, so why should we spend so much money on this project?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should not do it, but we need to know why we should help with this project,
and also it would be good if the proposal included some information about the researcher.
Also, why should it take 8 months? Why not 12? 6? 3?

Mariusz

Edited by Mariusz, 24 April 2009 - 11:59 PM.


#21 Mariusz

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Posted 25 April 2009 - 12:07 AM

Also what's the point of buying this laser? Are there no other laboratories / institutes that could allow you to use their hardware?

Mariusz

#22 Nason

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Posted 25 April 2009 - 12:49 AM

Proposal attached. Research would be under direction of the SENS foundation.


Last time I checked, SENS/MFoundation, had millions of dollars, and now they don't have measly 15k to fund this project, yet, they will be directing it? What's in it for us?
We can't even sponsor a cheap, in comparision to that proposal, FAH prize, so why should we spend so much money on this project?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should not do it, but we need to know why we should help with this project,
and also it would be good if the proposal included some information about the researcher.
Also, why should it take 8 months? Why not 12? 6? 3?

Mariusz


I've been told that all 2009 SENS funding for IBG is frozen - meaning no more projects can be funded this year. However, I am definitely not the person to ask when it comes to SENS F. finances. I am completely uninvolved and all I know is only hearsay. If necessary I can throw together a CV, but here's the gist:

1992 - 2001 go to school off and on, work various computer jobs, get a BS. in Computer Science from Iowa State University in 2001, work in a computer job until 2004.

2004-2006 prepare for grad school in life sciences, take a lot of chem and biology classes.

2006-2008 get MS in Pharmacology/Toxicology from University of Louisville, graduate with MS in December 2008.

March 2009-present move to Arizona and start working part-time for IBG.

As to why the project should take 8 months, it's hard to say what we'll run into, but I could very easily see us getting good results in under 2 months if all goes well. If that is the case, I'm going ahead with deeper tissue penetration experiments, and we may grab a few spare mice in the lab and give them a go - but I didn't include any of that because I've been told to be conservative and not make it look like I'm trying to accomplish too much in too little time. The other factor to consider is that we'll be trying to set up a tissue culture facility - which could set us back a bit. We're trying to do as much as possible now, but with virtually zero budget currently for cell culture it's hard to get anything done ahead of time.

Also what's the point of buying this laser? Are there no other laboratories / institutes that could allow you to use their hardware?

Mariusz


Yes, but bringing in other labs opens an IP can of worms. See my earlier posts for details.

#23 caliban

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Posted 26 April 2009 - 05:03 PM


NAVIGATION:
A policy discussion developed regarding the broader potential scope of Imminst science funding.
I have split these posts to the Members Forum
Apologies if this disrupts the context or readability.
Please keep discussions here focussed on this specific proposal.




#24 Mind

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Posted 30 April 2009 - 09:17 PM

Recorders decided to move this to the Board and Full members.

#25 caliban

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Posted 15 May 2009 - 04:58 PM

Dear Nason
The board has not yet voted on this proposal but there was some extensive discussion among membership and an informal poll in which in which 47 members voted, with a slight majority proposing not to support either one on the funding options presented.
We are keen to explore all potential alternative options for supporting this work.

Before we can consider this proposal more formally, could you give us some feedback whether it may be possible
-- to obtain some matching funding of about half the requested amount ($8000)
-- to tap into existing facilities so that e.g. some basic cell culture equipment would not need to be bought outright?

#26 Nason

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Posted 16 May 2009 - 12:42 AM

Dear Nason
The board has not yet voted on this proposal but there was some extensive discussion among membership and an informal poll in which in which 47 members voted, with a slight majority proposing not to support either one on the funding options presented.
We are keen to explore all potential alternative options for supporting this work.

Before we can consider this proposal more formally, could you give us some feedback whether it may be possible
-- to obtain some matching funding of about half the requested amount ($8000)
-- to tap into existing facilities so that e.g. some basic cell culture equipment would not need to be bought outright?


The answer to both questions is yes. I have condensed all relevant information into an addendum to the proposal and appended a CV for those who are interested. The document may be found at:

http://www.nasonscho...dum_with_CV.pdf

#27 caliban

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Posted 19 May 2009 - 07:36 PM

A matching grant is currently under discussion by the board, the deadline for that discussion is next Monday and is proposed to result in a full member vote.

#28 caliban

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Posted 29 May 2009 - 04:37 PM

Full member vote is underway, closing Tuesday June 2nd.
http://www.imminst.o...showtopic=30279

#29 Inkstersco

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Posted 23 June 2009 - 07:12 PM

Update...

The $8000 matching fund is underway.

http://www.imminst.o...-research-grant

--Inkstersco




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