MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - June 14, 2016) - The SENS Research Foundation (SRF), a non-profit organization focused on transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease, is pleased to announce the launch of its Control ALT Delete Cancer fundraising campaign. The campaign, hosted by the longevity research focused crowdfunding platform Lifespan.io, will accelerate the project's research efforts toward identifying specific drugs or compounds that can halt ALT (Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres) based cancers, which make up about 10-15% of all cancers.
The OncoSENS Research Team at the SENS Research Foundation, in collaboration with Dr. Jeremy Henson at the University of New South Wales in Australia, has developed a novel version of the C-circle assay that can be fully automated using robotic liquid handlers, making it now feasible to perform robust high-throughput screenings to search for chemical modulators of the ALT pathway.
"The goal of this project is to screen a library of about 115,000 compounds including over 3000 drugs and compounds already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There is also a rich amount of documentation related to the structure and activity of these drugs. This library contains structurally diverse, medicinally active, and cell permeable drugs from a variety of fields of medicine, including oncology, cardiology, and immunology. The crucial advantage of making use of these drug libraries is that once hits are identified and validated using our ALT-specific assays, these drugs can potentially be repurposed for the treatment of patients with ALT cancers," said Haroldo Silva, lead researcher for the project.
"We are thrilled to be partnering once again with the Lifespan.io team on our second crowdfunding campaign" said Jerri Barrett, vice president of outreach for SENS Research Foundation. "Being able to find a compound or drug which already exists that can treat ALT-based cancer is a critical first step in finding a cure for all cancers. The OncoSENS Control ALT Delete Cancer Campaign will help us move forward our research substantially. We would like to thank everyone who donates to the campaign in the coming days."
For more information about the campaign visit: https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/sens-control-alt-delete-cancer/.
About Lifespan.io
Lifespan.io is a crowdfunding platform focused specifically on projects aimed at extending healthy human lifespan. By contributing to projects on Lifespan.io, the public can learn about longevity research, meet the people making it happen, and be directly involved in potentially life changing scientific breakthroughs. For more information visit http://www.lifespan.io.
About SENS Research Foundation (SRF)
SENS Research Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works to research, develop, and promote comprehensive regenerative medicine solutions for the diseases of aging. SRF is focused on a damage repair paradigm for treating the diseases of aging, which it advances through scientific research, advocacy, and education. SENS Research Foundation supports research projects at universities and institutes around the world with the goal of curing such age-related diseases as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. Educating the public and training researchers to support a growing regenerative medicine field are also major endeavors of the organization that are being accomplished though advocacy campaigns and educational programs. For more information, visit www.sens.org.
Contact Information:
Media Contact:
Jerri Barrett
408-204-7229
jerri.barrett@sens.org