Silicon Valley's search for Fountain of Youth; Thiel joins Ellison in quest
Peter A. Thiel, co-founder and former chief executive officer of the online payments company, PayPal, has pledged $3.5 million “to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging,” and has invested in the Methuselah Foundation, a Springfield, Va., a nonprofit started and run by a colorful but controversial expert (pictured above) in aging research: Aubrey de Grey.
De Grey, a 43-year-old English researcher says he hopes to “radically postpone aging, giving indefinite life spans.” We contacted Thiel (pictured here) for comment early yesterday, but haven’t heard back. Thiel has become a well-known investor, running his own hedge fund, and also VC firm, the Founders Fund.
Oracle’s Larry Ellison has also pushed science aggressively in this area, but we haven’t heard much about his efforts of late.
If there is a place where the Fountain of Youth will be discovered, it will probably be here. There is more health research, and money going to fund it, than anywhere else. And there are wealthy entrepreneurs who want to fund this sort of thing.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
