{"id":35855,"date":"2019-02-04T12:56:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T17:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=35855"},"modified":"2019-02-04T12:56:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T17:56:33","slug":"venture-fund-formed-to-back-longevity-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=35855","title":{"rendered":"Venture Fund Formed to Back Longevity Research"},"content":{"rendered":"
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4 Feb. 2019. A new venture capital fund is being formed to finance start-up companies developing technologies that aim to extend healthy human life spans. The Longevity Vision Fund<\/a> plans to raise $100 million, mainly for early-stage investments in new biotechnology enterprises.<\/p>\n

The fund is founded and headed by Sergey Young<\/a>, a venture capital investor and partner with Bold Capital Partners<\/a> in Santa Monica, California, an early-stage venture fund that collaborates with Singularity University<\/a>, an entrepreneurial incubator that supports start-ups developing transformational technologies. In addition, Young is on the board of XPrize Foundation<\/a> that designs and manages public challenge competitions encouraging technologies that benefit humanity. XPrize Foundation was founded by Peter Diamandis<\/a>, a co-founder of Bold Capital Partners, and a collaborator with Longevity Vision Fund.<\/p>\n

“The fund’s mission is to lead the breakthrough in human longevity and to extend human lifespan worldwide allowing people to live longer, healthier lives,” says Young in a statement from Insilico Medicine<\/a>, a collaborator and supporter of Longevity Vision Fund. The fund plans to back first- and second- funding rounds of new enterprises developing therapeutics and information technologies supporting life science products and services for extending healthy human life.<\/p>\n

Young is scheduled to describe Longevity Vision Fund today at the Longevity Leaders Conference<\/a> in London, a conference discussing challenges and opportunities for longevity research and development. At the meeting, according to a separate statement<\/a> from Insilico Medicine, Young is expected to note, “We must confront and change the old perception of aging, shifting focus to living a life of purpose in our later years.” Young adds, “Longevity companies help to move products into the market that we all benefit from, resulting in breakthroughs in the longevity space.”<\/p>\n

Insilico Medicine<\/a> in Rockville, Maryland is a drug discovery company using artificial intelligence to find new treatments that address problems associated with human aging. Qingsong Zhu<\/a>, the company’s chief operating officer tells Science & Enterprise, Insilico is helping organize the fund, but currently has no financial stake in it.<\/p>\n

Insilico Medicine identifies leads for new treatments from analyzing voluminous\u00a0genomic, protein, and text databases<\/a>\u00a0with artificial intelligence or A.I. algorithms. As reported by Science & Enterprise<\/a> in January 2019, Insilico is collaborating with Tara Biosystems in New York, a developer of chip devices emulating heart tissue to discover new drugs to treat aging heart muscles.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s main A.I. technology uses\u00a0deep learning<\/a>, a form of machine learning that makes it possible to discern underlying patterns in relationships, and build those relationships into knowledge bases applied to a number of disciplines. Insilico offers as well a public online engine called\u00a0aging.ai<\/a>\u00a0that analyzes demographic characteristics and 19 biomarkers from blood samples.<\/p>\n

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