We know we say it every month, but the VitaDAO community has been busy. We’ve been told to shorten these newsletters, but in all honesty, all that happened in VitaDAO this month makes that difficult! February was packed full of journal clubs, new medium articles, active votes, and a growing community. In this newsletter, you can find recaps of February’s important events, updates on votes happening in the DAO, and upcoming events.
New here?
Welcome👋 TLDR: VitaDAO is a decentralized organization made up of individuals from across the globe🌎 working to fund early-stage longevity research. At its core, VitaDAO functions as an ecosystem with three moving parts: the DAO, the researchers, and their IP. Check out the VitaDAO Whitepaper for more information on VitaDAO governance. Learn more about IP-NFTs in this article written by Molecule here (and see an example of an IP-NFT here!). Want to purchase $VITA’s governance token? Read through the VitaDAO guide on how to purchase $VITA.
Community News
$VITA Goes Gnosis Chain
We added $VITA liquidity pools on Gnosis Chain! This will allow you to buy $VITA with decreased gas fees. Gnosis Chain is now the network with the 2nd largest liquidity pool for $VITA! Find a tutorial on how to buy $VITA on the Gnosis chain here.
Not Just Any Prize, The Longevity Prize!!
VitaDAO and the Foresight institute have launched the Longevity Prize (https://twitter.com/longevityprize)! This is a crowdsourced prize funded through the Gitcoin community and matched by Vitalik Buterin👽 to fund longevity research projects. In the upcoming months, roughly $185k donated will be distributed to projects advancing longevity research!
First Round of VitaDAO Fellows Selected!
The VitaDAO fellowship provides funding to individuals who want to get more deeply involved in longevity research📚. In the past month, VitaDAO has funded the first round of VitaDAO fellows to attend conferences, engage in programs like On Deck Longevity, and kickstart longevity projects. Interested in being included in the second round of awards? Apply here: https://www.vitadao.com/fellowship.
New Partnership Between Molecule, Apollo, and VitaDAO
Molecule and VitaDAO have partnered with Apollo Health Ventures, a leading longevity-focused VC fund. We hope that this partnership will allow us to help more longevity scientists turn their ideas into real-world applications. We are excited to introduce a traditional VC firm to crypto/web3, continuing to revolutionize the financing of drug development.
say hello to FRENS
VitaDAO has developed the FRENS framework for fractionalizing IP-NFTs via sublicenses. FRENS, which stands for Fair, Reasonable, Ethical, Nondiscriminatory Sublicense, aims to make drug development more like software development and distribute power into the hands of the community. Read specific details on FRENS on the VitaDAO medium.
Community Plug🔌 : Women of VitaDAO
Are you a woman who is interested in meeting other women involved in VitaDAO? VitaDAO is excited to have a new women-only Discord channel where women in VitaDAO can provide support, feedback, and attend community calls with other women in the DAO community! We love to see #Web3WomeninScience supporting #Web3WomeninScience 🤝
Scientific Publishing
Watch hosts Jocelynn Pearl’s and Vincent Weisser’s conversation with Ben Hills and Darren Zhu discussing the power of Web3 to revolutionize scientific publishing. This podcast explores how web3 can decrease the cost and barriers of traditional scientific publishing, and also touches upon proposals of future diversification of research models and means of research financing. VitaDAO x UltraRare collaborative podcasts feature conversations at the intersection of science and web3. Check out the podcast here.
Panel Discussion: Long Live the Worm- Studying Aging with Invertebrates
Learn about the use of creepy-crawly 🪱🪱 invertebrates in the study of longevity with speakers Prof. Dr. Björn Schumacher, Prof. Jan Gruber, Prof. Eugene Berezikov, and host Max Unfried.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EOpATmuvyY
Introducing…. LabDAO!!!
We are so happy to support a new arm of the DeSci ecosystem, LabDAO. LabDAO was created by our great fren Niklas Rindtorff as an idea sprouting from the previously existing #decentralized biotech VitaDAO Discord channel. LabDAO aims to be the AWS of science.To learn more about LabDAO, check out this video of Niklas presenting LabDAO at EthDenver, as well as their Twitter. Expect more updates about them soon!
Journal Club: Can Blood from Youngsters Make You Young
Listen to a Twitter Space recording discussing heterochronic parabiosis, an old scientific technique where the circulatory systems of two animals of different ages are connected. This journal club examines if the benefits of “young blood” in an old animal remain if the old animal stops receiving young blood. In an interesting figure of the discussed Zhang et al paper, gene expression changes due to heterochronic parabiosis are found to be similar to gene expression changes seen with other better known life-extending interventions like calorie restriction!
Journal Club: Doggos, Doggerinos & Their Lifespan
Interested in learning about the use of dogs as model organisms for longevity research? Have no fear! You can play a Twitterspace recording of the journal club and learn about a new insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) variant found in dogs. Inhibition of the IGF-1 pathway is one of the most reliable life-extending interventions in lab animals. This paper explores the finding that the newly discovered IGF-1 variant predicts dog size.
Never want to miss a journal club? Subscribe here.
Article: The Science Behind NAD-Boosting & Anti-Aging
Author Maria Marinova recently published an article on NAD+. This article explores the interaction of NAD+ with sirtuins, changes in NAD+ levels with aging, potential benefits to increasing NAD+, and methods of raising NAD+. Our humble review of the article: “Very informative! 10/10 recommend 👏🏻”.
✅We Voted✅
A Third Research Project Funded?! (VDP-21)
The Evandro Fang lab from the University of Oslo will be the third research lab to have a project funded by VitaDAO and IP-NFTs! 🎉 The lab is aiming to identify and characterize new drug candidates for activation of mitophagy with a positive impact on Alzheimer’s disease by investigation of underlying molecular mechanisms.
Forming an IP Holding company! (VDP-23)
VitaDAO voted to form an IP holding company for 2 reasons: to empower VitaDAO to hold existing soft IP (copyrights, logo trademarks) and to empower VitaDAO to hold future patents related to IP-NFTs. It is important to note that the IP holding company is formed only to hold IP which it cannot, for one regulatory reason or another, hold as IP-NFTs. Generally speaking, having an IP holding company will enable VitaDAO to obtain stronger legal protections for its IP and, crucially, more easily bring lawsuits against violators when needed.
Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) as a Bridge for Strategic Contributors! (VDP-24)
VitaDAO voted to create a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) to allow institutional actors such as pharmaceutical companies and funds to participate in governance of VitaDAO through a corporate agent. The SPV will be a Swiss association and will hold $VITA, allowing its shareholders to vote on VDPs. The SPV will not be required to vote as a single block. Rather, its members will be able to vote with their pro-rata portions of $VITA held in the SPV.
Open For V-V-V-V-Voting
Funding for Gitcoin Quadratic Longevity Round and VitaDAO Fellowship (VDP-30)
VDP-30 proposes the donation of $40,000 USDC to match donations for longevity research initiatives in Gitcoin’s March 2022 quadratic donation round and $15,000 USDC to fund the VitaDAO Fellowship program. Peruse the proposal and vote on Snapshot.(No tokens needed to vote!)
VitaDAO in the Wild
With DeSci trending, VitaDAO has been talked about and typed about by many members of the crypto community in February. Below, find a few times where VitaDAO was plugged by others in the crypto-community.
- VitaDAO was highlighted in an incredibly comprehensive guide to Desci written by Sarah Hamburg.
- Our friends at Lifespan mentioned VitaDAO when discussing funding science with a DAO and the use of IP-NFTs in longevity research.
- VitaDAO members were able to meet in person at ETHDenver. A much different experience than behind a computer screen🧑💻! Check out VitaDAO’s Cat presenting on VitaDAO at ETHDenver starting at timestamp 46:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3t4NxP-pFk
- Vitalik Buterin’s shoutout for VitaDAO (at time 16:55).
- VitaDAO is mentioned in the context of IP-NFT technology and retrospective funding.
- VitaDAO members had brunch with Vitalik Buterin!
Upcoming Events
March 4th at 6 PM CET- Join a security law workshop run by DAO member Jesse. This workshop has been created as a result of conversation sparked with VDP-27. Hop on and learn more about how VitaDAO is moving forward with funding equity and IP-NFT deals.
March 9th at 9 PM CET (Recurring Every Wednesday) — Pop into VitaDAO’s weekly onboarding session on Discord with Niklas Rindtorff and Alex Dobrin. Join the VitaDAO Discord Server to learn more about the DAO, how to get involved, have any lingering questions answered, and find schedules for specific working group meetings.
Interested in meeting other members from VitaDAO in person? Make sure to check out the #socialize-vita channel on Discord.
April 13th — There is a proposed VitaDAO Symposium occurring on April 13th, 2022. See event details, vote on the event proposal, or comment any questions on the VitaDAO Discourse.
Until Next Time
Between funding a third research project, bridging $VITA to the Gnosis chain, and publishing lots of new scientific communication content, VitaDAO had a very busy February. In the upcoming month, be on the lookout for more information on opportunities to meet other DAO members at global conferences, new proposals to vote on, and interesting research projects to fund..
We hope you enjoyed this month’s newsletter as much as we enjoyed writing it 😊. If so, we challenge you to subscribe and forward this Newsletter to a friend 💛.
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