A Swiss foundation to extend lifespan sets up its international HQ in Miami
By Katelin Stecz
Legend claims that 500 years ago, Ponce de Leon led an expedition from Puerto Rico seeking the Fountain of Youth. He never found the magical spring, but he did find Florida which, through a long chain of historical events, led to the founding of Miami. It seems appropriate then that the city was a first choice for an international organization continuing Ponce de Leon’s quest for eternal youth.
Longevity Science Foundation (LSF) is a nonprofit that hopes to pursue a “longer and healthier human lifespan” by funding cutting-edge research and development and bringing those medical technologies into the mainstream. It was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 2021 and has recently launched its U.S. operations in Miami with CEO Lisa Ireland at the helm, setting up offices in the Blue Lagoon area where the Miami World Trade Center is located. Ireland has over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector and hopes to increase public knowledge and access to longevity innovations with her expertise.
“The longevity field is rapidly scaling, with the potential for life-changing technologies to enter into human practice within the coming years,” Ireland says. “I’m excited to bring longevity into the mainstream and encourage more individuals to learn about this growing field and the unique work the LSF does to support its progress.”
Ireland also sees Miami as the perfect location for the foundation’s global headquarters. “Miami is growing immensely and has huge developing sectors in biotech, longevity, and business. It’s a world in itself,” she says. “And LSF is going to put Miami on the international marketplace as a hub of longevity.”
The organization prides itself on open-access and global participation. Its stated goal is “public access to proprietary biotech through decentralized participation,” something reflected in board members that include researchers and biotech executives from the U.S., Singapore, Dubai, China, Ukraine, the Netherlands, and the UK, where it has formed an alliance with King’s College in London.
The LSF plans to only fund projects that will produce actionable results ready for commercialization in three to five years. “Longevity has a little bit of a stigma,” Ireland says, explaining that it’s not “a magic pill you can take tomorrow that’s only available for the wealthy. We’re the exact opposite of that. We want to make sure our research is available to everyone and that it will have an effect.”
The nonprofit uses a blockchain-based voting platform to determine which projects get funded. Donors can help decide where their money will go using a points-based system on the Ethereum blockchain. The amount they give corresponds to a certain number of “points” which can be used to vote on projects.
LSF recently received nonprofit 501(c)(3) status in 2022’s Q1, so it doesn’t have any monetary data for the previous year. However, Ireland believes the foundation will attract large donations. The nonprofit recently opened funding calls for two prospective projects, one for application-based “aging clocks,” which purportedly predict longevity by checking organ degradation, and another regarding the impact of psychedelics on longevity. The latter is becoming something of an international topic, with a session on the use of therapeutic psychedelics at the recent Concordia Americas Summit in Miami.
“Our goal for LSF is to be able to award over $1 billion in grants over the next [10] years, and I have no doubt we’ll get there,” Ireland says. “We’re aggressively fundraising right now.” More information can be found at longevity.foundation.
