 | |
| Company type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2022 |
Key people |
|
Number of employees | 500  |
| Website | altoslabs |
Altos Labs, Inc. is an American biotechnology research company. Altos Labs' goal is to develop life extension therapies that can halt or reverse the human aging process. Specialized cell therapies based on induced pluripotent stem cells are to be developed for this purpose. The company was started in 2022.
Altos Labs was formally started on 19 January 2022. [1] The name Altos Labs is based on the city of Los Altos in California. [1] The idea for Altos Labs originated with cell biologist and entrepreneur Richard D. Klausner, who co-founded the company with Hans Bishop.
In 2021, Altos Labs was registered in the United States and the United Kingdom. [2] It will operate out of California (U.S.) and Cambridge (U.K.), with some work performed in Japan. [3]
One of the early investors of Altos Labs is an investment vehicle held for the benefit of the Breakthrough Foundation, founded by Russian-Israeli science and technology investor and philanthropist Yuri Milner and his wife Julia. The foundation supports existing and future philanthropic projects in fundamental sciences. [4] Milner had previously shown interest in anti-aging technologies, in October 2020, he co-hosted a meeting where experts presented their research, reported on animal testing, and the concept for Altos Labs was developed.
Altos Labs raised US$3 billion in a funding round from investors in January 2022. [2] It is said to be the best funded biotech start-up to date. [3] Investors reportedly include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos [5] and ARCH Venture Partners founder Robert Nelsen. [6]
Salaries for principal investigators at Altos Labs may be ten times higher than at comparable research institutions. [7]
Altos Labs plans to establish research facilities in Cambridge, the San Francisco Bay Area, and in San Diego as a first step. [8]
Atypical of a private company, the initial focus will be on basic research without immediate prospects of a commercially viable product. [1]
In January 2022, the company's president, Hans Bishop, argued that Altos Labs was working on increasing the "healthspan" of humans and that longevity extension would only be "an accidental consequence". [3]
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American business magnate best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. He is the second wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of US$ 211 billion as of July 16, 2024, according to Forbes. He was the wealthiest person from 2017 to 2021, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.
Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled biological limit of around 125 years. Several researchers in the area, along with "life extensionists", "immortalists", or "longevists", postulate that future breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation, stem cells, regenerative medicine, molecular repair, gene therapy, pharmaceuticals, and organ replacement will eventually enable humans to have indefinite lifespans through complete rejuvenation to a healthy youthful condition (agerasia). The ethical ramifications, if life extension becomes a possibility, are debated by bioethicists.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to life extension:
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Calico Life Sciences LLC is an American biotechnology company with a focus on the biology of aging, attempting to devise interventions that may enable people to lead longer and healthier lives. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Laura Deming is a venture capitalist whose work focuses on life extension, and using biological research to reduce or reverse the effects of aging.
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Insilico Medicine is a biotechnology company based in Pak Shek Kok, Hong Kong in Hong Kong Science Park near the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and in New York, at The Cure by Deerfield. The company combines genomics, big data analysis, and deep learning for in silico drug discovery.
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This timeline lists notable events in the history of research into senescence or biological aging, including the research and development of life extension methods, brain aging delay methods and rejuvenation.
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