Category Archives: Activities and Events

All events organized by Heales (meetings, conferences, get-together trips, etc.)

Donations from Didier Coeurnelle enable next phase of Robust Mouse Rejuvenation research program

Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation (LEVF) today welcomes two very generous donations from long-time supporter of longevity research and activism, Didier Coeurnelle.

The first donation is 200,000 euros (approximately 220,000 US dollars). The second donation, of up to another 200,000 euros, is dependent on LEVF receiving matching gifts from other donors from 1st October until the end of the month (October 31st).

These donations enable a key set of pre-study pilots ahead of the next phase of LEVF’s groundbreaking investigations into the effects of combining different damage-repair interventions for middle-aged mice.

RMR1, the first phase of this Robust Mouse Rejuvenation project, has been running since February 2023, and is now nearing completion. Mice in this project have received combinations of up to four different treatments.

Caitlin Lewis, Director of Project Pipeline & Strategy at LEVF, commented: “These donations come at exactly the right time, as we are ready to commence pre-study pilot trials ahead of RMR2. RMR2, which will involve mice receiving combinations of up to six different life-extension treatments, takes into account significant findings from RMR1. These experiments have the potential to achieve record-breaking extension of both healthspan and lifespan of middle-aged mice, and to catapult longevity intervention combinations into the mainstream and into the clinic.”

Didier Coeurnelle commented: “The RMR investigations are poised to transform public understanding of the possibilities of treatments to extend healthspan and lifespan, not only in mice, but in humans. These investigations particularly deserve financial support, from anyone who shares my conviction that treating aging is a profoundly urgent humanitarian task. October 1st is the start of Longevity Month, in which longevity advocates around the world place a special focus on the need for faster progress. I hope my own donations can inspire others to consider how they, too, can best help to accelerate the defeat of aging.”

Aubrey de Grey, President and CSO of LEVF, replied: “This is a wonderfully generous donation from Didier. Via his previous financial support and his tireless advocacy for more than 15 years, Didier has long been a bold champion of the quest to reverse aging. This is by far the largest donation he has made, and affirms our joint belief that now is the time to greatly expand research to target the underlying processes of aging. Anyone else who wishes to make a donation to support RMR or any of the other activities undertaken by LEVF can do so via the donation page on our website, https://www.levf.org/donate.”

About LEVF: Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt California nonprofit public benefit corporation (EIN 93-2716970). It exists to conduct and inspire research to proactively identify and address the most challenging obstacles on the path to the widespread availability of comprehensively effective treatments to cure and prevent human age-related disease. See https://www.levf.org/.

About RMR: The Robust Mouse Rejuvenation research program is a sequence of large mouse lifespan studies, each involving the administration of various subsets of at least four interventions that have, individually, shown promise in others’ hands in extending mean and maximum mouse lifespan and healthspan. The research focuses on interventions that have shown efficacy when begun only after the mice have reached half their typical life expectancy, and mostly on those that specifically repair some category of accumulating, eventually pathogenic, molecular or cellular damage. See the results of the first phase https://www.levf.org/projects/robust-mouse-rejuvenation-study-1.

About Didier Coeurnelle: Didier Coeurnelle is co-chair of HEALES, the Healthy Life Extension Society, an organization that promotes and supports anti-aging research by raising awareness about technological and medical developments in the field of biogerontology. See https://heales.org/. Didier is also a member of the board of the International Longevity Alliance, https://longevityalliance.org/, and is the author of the highly regarded newsletter “La Mort de Mort” which is published each month in French, English, Spanish, and Dutch, https://heales.org/category/deathofdeath/monthly-newsletter/. He has published two books (in French) about longevity and transhumanism, is a Belgian citizen, and works in Brussels as a senior civil servant.

Online Conference: Crispr, enhancement and longevity. Is the treaty of Oviedo nocive for collective health and against the 1948 constitution of the WHO?

Online Conference on  » Crispr, enhancement and longevity. Is the treaty of Oviedo nocive for collective health and against the 1948 constitution of the WHO? »   Wednedsay May 25, 5 PM to 8 PM CET

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwvdOmhqDMiHtZrS-0OFUy0B4IoKQ08ZJ4k

Speakers :

Sheetal Soni

Dr. Sheetal Soni is a senior lecturer in the field of Bioethics, International Law, and Intellectual Property Law. She holds LLB, LLM, and Ph.D. degrees and is an admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. Her research interests are genomics and the ethics of reproduction.   She is currently assisting with the drafting of Clinical Guidelines for the Provision of Genetic Services and serves on an expert panel of the Network of African Academies of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of South Africa.

Hervé Chneiweiss

Hervé Chneiweiss, a research director at the CNRS and the President of the Inserm Ethics Committee for medical research and health. He is also Research Director of the “Glial plasticity and brain tumors” research team and is Director of the Paris-Seine Neurosciences Laboratory (Inserm/CNRS/UPMC) at the new Paris-Seine Institute of Biology.

Bernard Baertschi

Bernard Baertschi is a senior researcher and teaching professor at the University of Geneva Institut Ethique, Histoire et Humanités, as well as a member of the Ethics Committee of Inserm (France). He is currently working on fundamental ethics, bioethics and neuroethics.

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE On Big Data, A.I. and Healthy Longevity. How to progress faster and better for all scientists ? Thursday, September 9, 2021

Joint Heales and International Longevity Alliance for a Virtual Conference on Thursday, September 9, from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM CET (from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM PDT) , titled :

Big Data, A.I. and Healthy Longevity.

How to progress faster and better?

Our goal is to contribute to creating a system that is trusted by citizens, managed by a public institution (or an NGO), where, by default (opt-out), all health data (anonymised or pseudonymised) can be used for scientific research (and not for other use). The ultimate goal is to enable everyone to live a longer and healthier life.

Here is a communication from the Commission to the European Parliament: « Those actions will be funded through the EU4Health programme200, DEP and Horizon Europe programmes with the goal by 2025 to ensure that : citizens from all the Member States are able to share their health data with healthcare providers and authorities of their choice. »

Register for the conference to receive the zoom link

PROGRAM

(This program is subject to change)

5:00 pm – 5:20 pm : Introduction by Didier Coeurnelle, Ilia Stambler, Sven Bulterijs and Marion Steenacker, scientific consultant at Heales

5:20 pm – 05:40 pm : Giovanni Briganti, AI4 Belgium : « Artificial Intelligence for health in Belgium. »

Abstract : “Artificial Intelligence shows many promises as well as challenges in the domain of Health. In this talk Giovanni Briganti will outline the main domains of health AI and how its implementation is being tackled in Belgium through the Health vertical of the AI4Belgium national coalition. »

Bio : “Giovanni Briganti, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist at CHU Brugmann, Brussels. He leads the Health vertical of AI4Belgium, the Belgian national coalition for AI. He researches Bayesian Artificial Intelligence, specifically the application of Bayesian Networks and other graphical models for the study of mental disorders. « 


05:40 pm- 6:00 pm : Ben Goertzel, CEO and founder of SingularityNET : « Decentralized AI for Healthy Longevity. »

Abstract : « Modern AI tools possess unprecedented potential for uncovering the root causes of human aging and age-associated disease.   However, AI needs data to do its work, and the larger and more diverse the datasets, the better.   Today the vast bulk of data that would be useful to feed AI algorithms oriented to study human longevity is locked up in proprietary corporate or government databases.   To solve aging effectively likely requires a multipronged effort: Use of decentralized blockchain based networks and other similar tools to incentivize individuals to share their data with researchers, and use of advanced (e.g. neural-symbolic) AI tools to draw inferences regarding longevity from the messy and diverse datasets that can realistically be assembled.   Work in this direction within the SingularityNET, OpenCog and Rejuve projects will be briefly described, as an example of this approach, involving joint AI analysis of datasets derived from long-lived humans, long-lived model organisms, and individuals of various ages and various levels of health. »

Bio : « Ben Goertzel is an artificial intelligence researcher, and CEO and founder of SingularityNET. He is the CEO and founder of SingularityNET, a project combining artificial intelligence and blockchain to democratize access to artificial intelligence.  He was a Director of Research of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He is also chief scientist and chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC; chairman of the OpenCog Foundation; and advisor to Singularity University. Ben Goertzel was the Chief Scientist of Hanson Robotics, the company that created Sophia the Robot. »


6:00 pm – 6:20 pm : Carina Dantas, The Digital Health Society / SHINE 2Europe : « What do citizens want when they share their data? »,  

Bio : « Carina Dantas has over 20 years-experience in health and social care. She is CEO of SHINE 2Europe, Senior International Project Manager for the ECHAlliance, Management team member of The Digital Health Society, member of the Standing Committee on Policy and Advocacy of the International Health Literacy Association, the Advisory Board of the H2020 projects ReHyb, VisuAAL, Tactile, Homes4life and reviewer of ICF Journal, Geriatrics and MDPI. »


6:20 pm – 6:40 pm : Thierry Geerts, Country Director Google Belgium and Luxembourg : « Homo Digitalis : How digitalization makes us more human”. « .

Abstract : « Digital applications simplify our lives, save time during the day, find information, stay healthy but especially can help us stay in contact with loved ones despite the pandemic or if they live thousands of km from here. In short, all things that are fundamentally… human! The changes that we are experiencing with digitalization are particularly significant, on a technical, human and social level. This digitalization does not make us less but more human, as a result of which, people themselves have evolved into what you could call a new human species: homo digitalis. Homo sapiens feared a mammoth, then a train or electricity. Today we are afraid of digitalization, AI or messages on social media. But technology itself is neutral, we don’t have to fear it. What we need to do is what we’ve done with technology in the past: overcome fears and embrace innovation. We have to take control of technology: learn about it and experiment with it. It will have a huge impact on healthcare. AI will improve diagnosis, therapies. Connected devices will help us to stay healthy. If we invest in those technologies, we can live longer and healthier and reduce the cost of healthcare for society. This new human being enriches her or his life thanks to digital applications, has the opportunity to spend more time on things that really matter in their lives like personal development, health, family and has instant contact with 4 billion other people”

Bio : « Since 2011, Thierry Geerts has been heading Google in Belgium and Luxembourg, the company that has become much more than just a search engine. He graduated from the VUB as a Solvay Business Engineer and soon became general manager of an industrial laundry company. With the advent of the internet in the mid-1990s, he reoriented himself towards the media industry and held various management positions at VUM (now Mediahuis), publisher of newspapers such as De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad. His book Digitalis (2018), in which he describes the possibilities of the digital world, has meanwhile sold more than 25,000 copies. In 2021 he published his new book, Homo Digitalis, about the impact of the digital revolution on people and society. »


6:40 pm – 7:00 pm : Y-H Taguchi :  » The Big Data Situation in Japan (and other Asian countries) »

Abstract: « In Asian countries, Big Data usage in health care is rapidly developing. In this talk, I will talk about situations in these countries, especially focusing on Japan, China and Korea. Recent corna pandemic accelerated the progress of usage of big data in health care, although Japan is so behind the other two countries.   Big Data usage in health care will be increasingly important on Asian countries including these three countries. »

Bio : « Prof. Taguchi is currently a Professor at Department of Physics, Chuo University. Prof. Taguchi received a master degree in Statistical Physics from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in 1986, and PhD degree in Non-linear Physics from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan in 1988. He worked at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Chuo University. He has been with Chuo University (Tokyo, Japan) since 1997. He currently holds the Professor position at this university. His main research interests are in the area of Bioinformatics, especially, multi-omics data analysis using linear algebra. Dr. Taguchi has published a book on bioinformatics, more than 100 journal papers, book chapters and papers in conference proceedings. »


7:00 pm – 7:20 pm : Break


7:20 pm – 7:40 pm : Agbolade Omowole, Founder of Longevity Nigeria : « Application of A.I. and Big Data on Healthy Longevity in Africa and Data Ethics Oversight. »

Abstract : « In the past, Nigerians have been overly dependent on health care solutions from the developed world until recently. Today lots of startups are disrupting the healthcare industry in Nigeria and providing world class solutions to Nigerians and Africans. I will present information about how a number of organizations in Nigeria are leveraging A.I. and Big Data to improve the lives of Nigerians and why they should have an ethical oversight. The ethics oversight will highlight the basic principles of data ethics that should be incorporated into big data and artificial intelligence. »

Bio : « Agbolade Omowole is a passionate researcher on the ethics of AI and data driven technologies. He is the founder of Longevity Nigeria, a healthy longevity activism organization that is creating awareness on improving healthspan in Nigeria, and Africa at large. »


7:40 pm – 8:00 pm : Karen Sandler : « Digital Autonomy and Longevity ».

Bio : “Karen M. Sandler is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, a charitable nonprofit dedicated to empowering people to control their technology with software freedom. She is known as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for software as a life-or-death issue, particularly in relation to the software on medical devices. Prior to joining Conservancy, she was the executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was the general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. Karen co-organizes Outreachy, the award-winning outreach program for people who face under-representation, systemic bias, or discrimination in tech . Karen is an adjunct Lecturer-In-Law at Columbia Law School. She is the recipient of the Free Software Foundation’s 2017 Award for the Advancement of Free Software as well as an O’Reilly Open Source Award.”


8:00 pm – 8:20 pm : Didier Coeurnelle, co-chair at Heales : « General introduction to Legislation and Organisations concerning the public sharing of Health Data around the world. »

Bio : “Didier Coeurnelle Didier Coeurnelle (Belgium) is co-chair of Heales (Healthy Life Extension Society), which publishes a monthly newsletter of information: The Death of Death and organizes international conferences. He is a spokesman of the French association Technoprog, which aims to “spread the themes and questions related to technologies that could extend and enhance the lives of individuals and of humankind”. He is also a member of the board of the International Longevity Alliance, an active member of the social and environmental movement and a jurist.


8:20 pm – 8:40 pm : Stefan Sorgner : « A philosopher’s point of view. Why is it important to share more for the collective? »

Abstract : « To guarantee that an enormous plurality of different lifestyles can be embraced in a society while a highly efficient universal healthcare system is available, we need a democratic usage of our digital data. I will sketch central reflections concerning a promising initial step for developing appropriate social, legal and political structures for realizing a proper democratic usage of our digital data. »

Bio : « Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is a philosophy professor at John Cabot University in Rome and is director and co-founder of the Beyond Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), Research Fellow at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and Visiting Fellow at the Ethics Centre of the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena. He is editor of more than 10 essay collections, and author of the following monographs: Metaphysics without Truth (Marquette University Press 2007), Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche (WBG 2010), Transhumanismus (Herder 2016), Schöner neuer Mensch (Nicolai, 2018), Übermensch (Schwabe 2019), On Transhumanism (Penn State University Press); We have always been cyborgs (Bristol University Press 2022). In addition, he is Editor-in-Chief and Founding Editor of the “Journal of Posthuman Studies” (a double-blind peer review journal, published by Penn State University Press since 2017). Furthermore, he is in great demand as a speaker in all parts of the world (World Humanities Forum, Global Solutions Taipei Workshop, Biennale Arte Venezia, TEDx) and a regular contact person of national and international journalists and media representatives (Die Zeit, Cicero, Der Standard; Die Presse am Sonntag, Philosophy Now). www.sorgner.de & www.mousike.de« 


8:40 pm – 9:00 pm : Break

9:00 pm – 9:45 pm : Debate and proposals: « How to progress faster and better for all scientists? » Participants : Karen Sandler, Thierry Geerts, Stefan Sorgner, Ben Goertzel and Didier Coeurnelle.

9.45 pm -10:00 pm : Official closing by Ilia Stambler and Didier Coeurnelle

ALL ABOUT PEOPLE 2021: Digital Transformation in Science, Education and Arts (Slovenia) March 12 to 19, 2021.

9th Scientific Conference with International Participation under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Mr. Borut Pahor

The conference All about people 2021 is dedicated to the topic of digital transformation in science, education, and arts. With the arrival of COVID-19, the changes that had already taken place in the educational process, have only accelerated unexpectedly with the rapid development of new technologies.

This event will take place online from March 12 to 19, 2021.

the conference schedule is online http://submission.almamater.si/mobile/#s:64 

February 11, 2021. Conference and workshops. Clarifying whether and to what degree the current anti-aging approaches work in mice or people.

On the occasion of the next online conference to be held on Thursday, February 11, 2021, from 17:00 to 22:00 PM CET (8.00 AM to 1 PM PDT, 11.00 AM to 4 PM EDT),

we will invite renowned scientists to give an overview of effective anti-aging studies performed on mice or rats as well as the most recent tests performed on humans.

We share with you the link of the videos cut out for each speaker as well as a synthesis of the comments and proposals made during the workshops.


Thursday, 11 February

17:00 – 17:15  Introduction Didier Coeurnelle, Ilia Stambler, Sven Bulterijs 

1. Test on mice/ rats: good practices 

17:15 – 17:30  Conboy Irina “Resetting Aged Blood to Restore Youth”

17:30 – 17:45 Vera Gorbunova  “ Promoting longevity by improving genome stability “ 

17:45 – 18:00  Rodolfo Goya  “ Rejuvenation and life extension” 

18:00 – 18:15   Josh Mitteldorf  « interactions among interventions, and why we can’t just test them separately ».

18:15 – 18:30  Harold Katcher “Breakthrough in age reversal with young blood plasma”  

18:30 – 18:40 Pause

2. Test on human: good practices

18:40 – 18:55   Nir Barzilai “TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin)”  

18:55 – 19:10  Greg Fahy “Reversal of epigenetic aging and immunosenescence trends in humans”

19:10 – 19:25 Hanadie Yousef (Juvena Therapeutics)  « Harnessing the regenerative secretome of human embryonic stem cells to rejuvenate aged tissues » 

19:25 – 19:40  Liz Parrish “Gene therapy to reduce the effects of aging”

19:40 – 19:55 Justin Rebo (BioAge)  “Reversing immune aging to treat COVID-19 and other diseases: from discovery to the clinic”

19:55 – 20:00 Martin Lipovšek “Slovenian Levine clock project”

20:00 – 20:10 Edouard Debonneuil « Of mice and men: from the Major Mouse Testing Program to the Major Human Testing Program »

20:10 – 20:20 Pause

3. From rats to humans and the other way around? Legal, scientific, technical, and political aspects concerning Clinical tests 

20:20 – 20:35 The science, aging clocks and clinical applications.  Alexander Zhavoronkov

20:35 – 20:50 . How to  accelerate. Legal, scientific, technical and political aspects Didier Coeurnelle

20:50 – 21:05. Have the anti-aging interventions worked? Some lessons from the history of anti-aging experiments on animals and humans. Ilia Stambler 

21:05 – 21:15 Pause

4. Discussion about the 3 themes in 3 groups. Goal: one page of thoughts and proposals for each group

21:15 – 22:00 Divided in 3 zoom spaces

Rats Chair Mike Conboy and Marion
Human tests Chair Aubrey de Grey
Political aspects Alexander and Didier

5. Conclusion and goodbye


The next day, Friday, February 12 (8 – 9.30 PM CET)
Finalization of the 3 texts of thoughts and proposals (discussion online)

Same Zoom link.

  • You can participate in the online conference « Being 100 years young » on 11 and 12 June 2020.

Conference 2023

  • Heales will take part in the Festival « I love science » in November 2020.
  • The Eurosymposium of October 2020 will happen on line  during 3 days: Thursday 1st, Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd.

Brussels. October first. The International Day of Longevity. 

A lunch combined with presentations took place on Tuesday 1 October 2019 at noon at the « A La Mort Subite » rue Montagne aux Herbes Potagères 7, 1000 Brussels.


Speakers:

·        

·         David Wood, futurist and author of « The abolition of aging » will make a general introduction about the Longevity day and social questions related to longevity. Vidéos of David about longevity day and question about eugenism.   

·         Felix Werth, member of the German Party for Health Research will present European and German campaigns for elections. Vidéo of Felix 

·         Guilhem Velve Casquillas, CEO of Elevsys/Elveflow as well as the creator of the website « Long Long Life » will present his projects and the Plan ExtenSanté

·         Didier Coeurnelle, passionate about longevity and co-president of Heales, who will present the Californian referendum project (CHAI) and the proposal of a moonshot project for longevity.

·         (Not Sure yet) Sven Bulterijs, co-president of Heales will present recent scientific news concerning longevity

Heales wants to be progressive in its vision of extending our healthy

life expectancy, based on modern biotechnological innovations. Our mission is to share our expertise in longevity to raise awareness among the general public by publishing information, stimulating media, organizing political debates, conferences and other activities. 

Contacts

Virginie Stephenne, virginie.stephenne@heales.org, Scientific collaborator
Didier Coeurnelle didier.coeurnelle@gmail.com, Co-president of Heales

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Next Heales meetings: Sunday, April 5, 2020, from 2 to 4 PM and Sunday, May 3

Next meetings (normally the first Sunday of the month in the café ‘A la Mort Subite’ from 2 to 4 PM):

When:

Sunday, April 5, 2020 (online due to the coronavirus) and Sunday, May 3, from 2 to 4 PM probably online, maybe the Mort subite (see below).

 

Where:

Brussels, café ‘A la Mort Subite’ (rue Montagne-aux-Herbes Potagères 7 Warmoesberg; 1000 Brussels; GPS: 50.848652, 4.356296). Heales’ meetings are held in the upstairs part of the pub

More info about the pub in which the meetings are held: A La Mort Subite