XPRIZE Healthspan, $101 Million to Incentivize Rejuvenation in Old People

Prizes for success in research and development can work well, if coupled with suitable publicity and activism. Such efforts have a long history, going back to the well-documented longitude rewards offered by the British government in the 1700s. More recently, the original Ansari X Prize for suborbital flight was a very successful example of this sort of initiative, and was launched around the same time as the Methuselah Mouse Prize to spur greater efforts to extend life in animal models. The Palo Alto Longevity Prize followed later with similar goals. Unfortunately for the ability of longevity-focused prizes to generate ongoing publicity, it has turned out to be hard to beat the 60-70% extension of life of mice lacking functional growth hormone signaling. That was not anticipated. XPRIZE is the foundation that emerged from the original Ansari X Prize, set up to run further incentive prizes for research and development. After a few years of recent interest in involving XPRIZE to in some way help to accelerate the ongoing development of means to treat aging, organizers have now found the sizable funding needed for such an effort, and launched the XPRIZE Healthspan initiative. Development of medical interventions and clinical trials to prove their efficacy are expensive propositions, and a prize to incentivize more activity in this arena must be correspondingly large - and so it is. XPRIZE Launches Larges Competition in History - $101M XPRIZE Healthspan to Drive ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs