VitaDao: Applying Blockchain Technology to Longevity Research

https://www.vitadao.com/

As of 2021, it is no longer a question of whether longevity research is feasible or not- the research is here. The longevity field is now backed by big investments such as Bank of America [1] claiming to be “a market worth $600 billion by 2025”. Big-name investors such as the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, have gotten into the longevity field as of 2021 [2]. Other big-name investors such as Yuri Milner, who has a reputation as Russa’s most influential tech investor, according to his Forbes Profile [3], have started to invest in longevity companies [2]. Prestigious Universities like Harvard’s Sinclair Lab [4], UC Berkeley’s #InThisGen [5], University of California San Francisco’s Bakar Aging Research Institute [6], and Stanford University have some variations with longevity research labs using pluripotent cells [7]. Within a very short amount of time, the longevity field has gone from a very obscure, little known, and openly mocked in the medical research field in the year 2005 [8], to a viable and very real possibility in the current year 2021 [9]. Longevity research could absolutely increase the quality of life if deteriorating and aging bodies are no longer a problem; but as longevity technology is being developed, we have to ask who would have access to these technologies should they surface? We should not keep the current status quo of medical research and development, where innovation and access-to-care have been stagnated by price-gouging, the lack of transparency by biopharma companies, and the restricted access of data has prevented medical researchers from collaborating for a meaningful goal of ending biological aging. There are two parts to understand about this massive project: 1. What longevity research is. 2. How could blockchain technology accelerate and equalize access to longevity research. At the end of this essay, I hope to persuade readers to understand why it is important to think about how blockchain technology can equalize access to medical advancements while longevity research is still just developing rather than wait until the research is already developed and access to longevity treatments may then be restricted.

The longevity movement all started with a controversial book titled “Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime” by Aubrey De Grey [10]. A condensed version of that book can be found on 2007 youtube video titled “A roadmap to end aging | Aubrey de Grey” where the De Grey the Cambridge researcher makes the assertion that aging should be classified as a disease [11]. Since the controversial movement started over a decade ago, an impressive amount of research labs and biotechnology startup companies have appeared to tackle the multiple problems of aging. Some companies have approached aging by developing Senolytics treatments — which remove senescent cells using drugs that target cells that are no longer dividing [12]. Other research labs have approached aging by using well-marketed diabetes drugs like Rapamycin [13] and Metformin [14], the results of these drugs extend life in mice. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what the longevity field can achieve; when the research in induced pluripotent cells had won the Nobel prize in 2012, where it was shown that old human cells can be reverted back into stem cells [15], well that was it. That was in my opinion had been the crack the broke the dam on the scientific community to solidify the validity of whether aging could be reversed and whether lifespan can be extended, whether regenerative medicine was a valid field for life extension [16]. Everything from removing senescent cells from the body to reprogramming pluripotent cells, to gene-editing our way into longevity using CRISPR technology [17] had shown that the future of medicine will not be as we know it now. A boom had emerged and multiple biotechnology labs and companies sprung up wanting to be at the forefront of these futuristic medical developments.

It is impossible to list every single company, organization, research lab, and open-sourced associations that currently occur in the longevity field because it is constantly shifting. However, for a beginner who would like to see the latest research compiled on the latest drugs and lifestyle choices that have been researched to scientifically extend longevity, an amazing list of drugs and has been compiled by Thiel Scholarship recipient Laura Deming, who runs the Longevity Fund. Deming’s venture fund backs multiple longevity research companies; her website lists a series of drugs that effectively slow down the rate of aging as we know it now [18]. Another promising research organization for a beginner in the longevity field is to is czbiohub.org, where a very specific OpenCell [19] and Tabula Sapiens Project [20] , an open-source collaboration where data is simply shared without a pay-wall to access the data. These open-source projects played a role in identifying cells and proteins that may play a role in treating longevity. Calicolabs is another prominent longevity organization with a smorgasbord of publications and projects involving proteins, genomics, and metabolism. The longevity field is nothing short of zeal. I cannot properly express how wonder-struck it was to be exposed to the longevity community with its generosity and collaboration. The burgeoning field has attracted incredibly talented, passionate, and intelligent participants with an energy that has not been seen since the American Space Race.

However, while it is very easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement, there is a nagging problem of financial accessibility. The longevity field is still in its early stages of development. The only two accessible longevity treatments are therapies involving young blood transfusion by companies like the California-based startup Ambrosia that sells blood young blood for $8,0000 per liter [21], based on a scientific study from 2005 from tissue regeneration by Stanford in mice [22]. And cryogenic companies like Alcor, which will cryonically preserve a body for $200,000 for the whole body and $80,000 for a neuro cryopreservation-only the head will be frozen [23]. With these two samples of longevity companies, and it can be anticipated that the cost of treatments or preservation is out of reach to the average person.

When we take off our rose-colored glasses about the future where there is a potential of aging bodies, illness, and debilitation are a problem of the past, the hard reality of access to healthcare and treatments will still be a barrier to individuals without the means to afford it. According to VitaDao’s whitepaper V1.0, there is a strange problem that can be a barrier to access medical developments from the longevity field, and that is who will own the Intellectual Property (IP) and patents developed from anti-aging research? Those who own the rights to longevity treatments, can dictate its affordability and incentivize further research in the field. The concern is that the anti-aging research developed today can have the same problems in the modern-day. As stated by VitaDao

“The centralization of aging research by large institutions and billionaires has the potential to create the same problems and pitfalls that plague the pharmaceutical industry: lack of transparency, restricted access, and concentrated control over therapeutics that should be made widely available to anyone at an affordable price… centralized, profit-driven control would turn longevity into a luxury good accessible only to the top 0.1% globally.” [24]

The problem of inequality does plague the minds of individuals who support the longevity field, such as myself, as it would be devastating to see the problem of unequal access come up later as treatments when longevity progresses to its developed state. If those problems are structural, VitaDao is offering a different incentive and financial system that can be put in place now while an entire field is still new, rather than later when the entire field may have been monopolized by savvy organizations that know how to utilize patents and intellectual property. The assertion that organizations like VitaDao pursue is whether blockchain technology can be applied to longevity research in its early stages and if those block-chain applications could challenge the current biopharma industry where access to quality medicine depends on a person’s income and insurance coverage.

The story of how VitaDao came to be is vague but rather interesting, how so many talented people came together to form this organization is unknown to me. There are some impressive characters at play with its founders, who are nothing short of highly accomplished individuals. Theodore Walker has a background in Web3 development and is working as a consultant [25]. Web3, the crypto-software, was a big deal at the start of the cryptocurrency because it was a revolutionary idea that the internet should be decentralized and based on peer-to-peer technologies [26]. Tyler Golato is a co-founder of the molecule, a software that is now owned by Vitadao (according to Vitadao’s whitepaper) and Paul Kohlhaas, the CEO with a background at Ethereum (another blockchain company akin to Bitcoin but with more tokens circulating the web) [25]. Individuals with backgrounds in computer science, start-up culture, intellectual property in medicine, biogerontology, and cryptocurrency are involved with this massive project of democratizing longevity research.

In the whitepaper written by VitaDao, the process of biotechnology’s start-up process, the democratizing community organization of Vitadao, finances, and process of running Vitadao or any of the research the organization funds, and the software and technologies incorporated into the Vitadao cryptocurrency software program are listed. The VitaDao whitepaper starts with presenting a problem in the biotechnology industry, there is a huge misalignment of incentives between the biopharmaceutical companies, researchers, and patients who depend on the medicine provided by medical industries [25]. The introduction to a current problem is almost self-explanatory. When we think of the biopharma industry in the modern day, we think of unequal access to quality healthcare [27], and we think of medical bankruptcy for lifesaving drugs [28]. The cost of insulin to treat diabetes at an average of $16,752 per year [29] and antiretrovirals the drugs for HIV and AIDS at $1,800-$4,500 per month, is one of the most famous examples of that incentive misalignment VitaDao states. The cost of having these illnesses can leave someone uninsured financially bankrupt [28]. Relying on the ethics of a biopharma industry has not been fruitful, as there are no financial or legal incentives to avoid price-gouging the cost of medication for profit maximization [30]. The tight grip on the bio-medical industry has been addressed as the centralization of an industry, where research and medical distribution are monopolized by just a few companies.

The criticism Vitadao has for the centralization of medicine is the 1. Lack of Transparency 2. Restricted Access 3. Concentrated control. The lack of transparency has incentivized biomedical industries to withhold negative research data, leading to a reproducibility crisis in research where if a laboratory tries to recreate a treatment, it will not be able to. The restricted access prevents organizations from sharing data and information. And the concentrated control leads to an interesting principle-agent dilemma [31], where only one entity can make decisions that will impact an incredibly large population of people. The disincentive for research organizations to collaborate is a disaster for innovation and advancing medicine.

The damage to medical research is not just to the patients who depend on research and cures to life-threatening illnesses, the damage is applied within the biomedical industry. The way a biomedical organization stays afloat financially is through value creation, where intellectual property (IP) and research and development (R & D data) are important to secure future revenue for the research. However, this is a problem that blocks innovation and is coined “The Valley of Death” because the current business model of having IP ownership is that it blocks innovation [24]. There are many steps to the process of intellectual property ownership such as extensive legal contracts, bureaucratic complexities, and even when the IP is valuable. All the IP is rigid, largely illiquid, and difficult to transfer. If someone tries to transfer their research (that they developed) to another organization that may be able to further develop research, it becomes a complex process that delays and costs time.
Another problem that Vitadao brings up is how hard it is for a person to start funding research. “In the US, generally only accredited investors can finance early-stage ventures (Rowley, 2020)” [24]. The “hard to get into” aspect already eliminates potential investors who may have the funds to support significant research. It makes it hard for researchers to gain a certain amount of support from a community when only accredited investors can fund its process. Another barrier that eliminates potential funders in research is the high cost of R & D (research and development. It takes a long time (10 years) to market, and it is hard to find individuals with the means to fund research for a decade. A barrier that block-chain technology in Vitadao hopes to eliminate is the limitations on who could invest in longevity research.

While we can’t really do much about the current business model, where medications are priced out of reach for individuals with fewer means, but we can think about who can finance longevity research and be a recipient of its progress. When an organization is able to apply blockchain technology into IP ownership for the research, they have some power over which direction the research will go. With blockchain technology, the legal barrier of who can finance a research project is eliminated as the ownership of intellectual property and data produced by research labs will be owned by a community with stakes in those IP rights, as opposed to a monopolized organization. The longevity field is still new enough that the ownership of intellectual property has not been held by just a single entity just yet. However, it is prudent to put in organizational systems that could prevent monopolization, such as blockchain technology and IP rights. Medical research would be democratized, community-owned, and accessible to the public. If the ownership of IP rights is held by a community, maybe considerably more meaningful changes to the medical field can take place when access to life-saving treatments are accessible.

The task held by VitaDao is to turn IP rights into NFT tokens called VITA tokens. A person can buy VITA tokens using any cryptocurrency of their choice. By owning a VITA token, the coin owner can join a community where they can participate in funding research and see which project is the most fruitful. The argument that VitaDao states are that using blockchain technology to fund longevity research, reduces volatility and creates a circular economy. A community will actively contribute value and review a project’s success. And because the medical research is funded by a community of individuals who own VITA tokens, it would not have the same problems of a minuscule amount of stakeholders withholding data, as all the data is owned by the community. A community of individuals will be the stakeholders to any progress longevity research produces. In turn, make acces tso medicine democratized and decentralized.

What I feel optimistic about VitaDao’s application to longevity research is that the project of giving ownership to the people is not just based on idealism and goodwill. The whitepaper published by the organization foresee challenges with privacy and finances and strategize and plan before a barrier occurs. Data is incredibly important to Intellectual Property and the ownership of the IP. Some data may be hidden to avoid compromising the IP. To access data assets, a token holder would have to have KYC documentation and a confidentiality agreement to secure the viability of assets. The whitepaper has a section of how the finances would be distributed. Video will raise sufficient funds to cover operational expenses and running costs. There are 64,298, 880 VITA tokens, 30% will be owned by the community according to 3.3.1 Genesis, and the rest 70% will remain unminted in the VitaDao’s treasury to ensure the longevity of the organization. $2,500,000 will be used to support the first cohort of research projects [24]. The finances, legalities, and privacy may not be the only issue that will arise with Vita’s approach towards blockchain and IP, but it inspires confidence in me when some of the challenges have been thought out before it has occurred.

Longevity research and access to its work is deeply personal to me. I became interested in both medical research and inequality to medical when I first volunteered at Laguna Honda Hospital at 14 years old. It was the first time I had been exposed to end-of-life care, and how patients who walked into that hospital never came out. People physically deteriorated in front of me with neurodegenerative diseases and incontinence. To offset that experience, I volunteered at a wealthier hospital, their access of care was of a higher quality (everything from the medicine, the rooms patients rested in, the staff-to-patient ration) was so much better. But there was always a pervasive feeling to me that poverty and illness went hand-in-hand. When I saw my community launch VitaDao, a hopeful part of me held on to the optimism the inequality of care and the illnesses that came with old age may be a problem of the past. It is my hopes to write about and contribute on the sidelines, in hopes it will succeed in democratizing the IP rights to medical research of the future. Otherwise, it is quite a revolutionary idea to give access to medical research to a community and decentralize a pervasive problem of unequal access to medicine.

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