Who they are
They made longevity fundable
The Methuselah Foundation was co-founded in 2000 by Dave Gobel and his son Dane Gobel, together with Aubrey de Grey — on a stubborn idea: that you could pull a whole field forward with a prize. Their Methuselah Mouse Prize (Mprize) made longevity research fundable at a time when almost nobody would touch it. From there they took on the organ shortage through the New Organ initiative, ran open-innovation challenges with NASA, and — through the M Fund — began seeding the early regenerative-medicine companies building replacement parts for the body. It is a family mission as much as a foundation: several of the Gobels work the same problem together. The goal, they’ll tell you, is to one day not be needed at all.
The lever
Prizes
The Mprize proved you could move science with a prize — turning “impossible” longevity research into something the world would fund.
The organ problem
New Organ
Tackling the organ shortage through bioengineering and preservation — so that one day no one dies waiting on a list.
The bet
The M Fund
Seed capital into the earliest regenerative-medicine companies — and open challenges, including vascular-tissue prizes with NASA.
Who founded it
The co-founders
Methuselah is a family mission. A father and son co-founded it together — and run it together to this day.
Methuselah Foundation
The man who bet a prize could move a whole field — and spent two decades proving it. See his profile ↗︎
Prizes · NASA · Biomarkers of Aging
Dave’s son — runs the prize competitions, the NASA partnerships and the Biomarkers of Aging Consortium. See his profile ↗︎
Co-founded with Aubrey de Grey ↗︎ — now President of the LEV Foundation, and on our Scientific Advisory Board.
In their words
“Make 90 the new 50”
From our interviews in Washington with Dave Gobel and his son Dane — on what the foundation is really for.
What is Methuselah really here to do?
We have a forcing function in our mission: to make 90 the new 50 by 2030. So when you wonder what Dave is working on, what Dane is doing today — we’re thinking, “How in the world can we make that happen?”
Dane — where did all this begin?
It began with the Longitude Prize. Centuries ago, a prize solved navigation at sea. My dad wanted to do the same for heart disease — and it became clear pretty quickly that all these diseases tie back to the hallmarks of aging.
The thing I’m most excited about is that it feels like it’s finally happening. What we set out to do at the very beginning — gravitating around the idea of aging as a disease, which really includes a hundred different things — has finally created a wave of startups and real breakthrough research.
A foundation that wants to put itself out of business?
I have kind of an allergy to foundations that don’t accomplish their mission. My goal is to not need a Methuselah Foundation. Of course it would collapse — because the problem would be solved. For me, that’s the point.
And you brought your whole family into it.
You have your passion, you have your mission — reduce the suffering of the world — and somehow we managed to bring the whole family into it. In the end, we just want to do good toward all.
Dane — why work with NASA on this?
Space is the perfect forcing function. You’re trying to keep humans alive and thriving in the most dangerous environment you could possibly imagine. Solve that, and the translation back home is enormous — which is exactly why NASA should be one of the leaders in longevity.
