It is possible to mistakenly believe that life expectancy of 100+ years can only be achieved by future generations. The advancements in technology and AI are rapid and blockchain could make it possible to live longer.

Switzerland-based Longevity Science Foundation has launched a $1Billion fund for projects and research to improve human longevity.

Non-profit organisation aims make long term medicine accessible to everyone. The organization will concentrate on four areas of research: therapy, predictive diagnosis, personalized medicine, artificial intelligence, and therapeutics. This foundation will fund medical technology (which broadly encompasses blockchain) development.

Blockchain for the Medical Industry

The volume of healthcare data can be overwhelming and poses security and centralization challenges. A hospital generates 760 Terabytes per year on average. Garri Zmudze of Longevity Science Foundation stated that 80% (or more) of these data are not structured, making them difficult to access for researchers.

Medical research is hampered by the need to secure data and obtain consent every time it’s used. Blockchain and AI allow patients to easily obtain consent, unlock data for analysis and make it transparent about their usage.

“Without blockchain, artificial intelligence lacks the ethically sourced and protected biomedical data it needs to find new solutions. Without artificial intelligence, the vast amounts of data protected by blockchain remain secure but unusable for research,”
The article states.

Blockchain Technology and Longevity Research

VitaDAO funds longevity research through a distributed collective. The web3-based organization aspires to “create a world where longevity therapeutics are collectively funded, owned and governed by the population that will benefit from them.”

VitaDAO’s ecosystem has an open structure–everyone who owns VITA tokens can access it. VitaDAO requires you to work for the tokens or contribute funds and other resources. In addition, “its collective membership, rather than a CEO or a handful of grant reviewers, will decide by vote how to deploy its funding, manage its IP, and share/publish its data.”

To raise funds for researchers in longevity, the organization held an auction of tokens on a cryptocurrency platform. It raised $5.1million (400% higher than anticipated).

What can blockchain do to improve longevity?

Eleanor Sheekey (biochemist, researcher) says that blockchain has two primary ways it can improve longevity. One is funding longevity projects, such as VitaDAO. These funds not only provide significant funding for research, but they also help in the commercialization of drug products if successful.

The second way is by exploiting some of the features of blockchain technology such as security and storage of data, which is most relevant to the application of personalised or precision medicine whereby patient information such as genetics, blood profile data, microbiome assessments, epigenetic methylation, and sleep data could be transacted and analysed without risk of the patient data getting into the “wrong hands” and being exploited.

“I think it is hard to tell for now what the potential of blockchain in medical research might be, but I don’t foresee a future whereby blockchain technology is not a part of medical research,”
Sheekey shared his thoughts with DailyCoin via email.

To The Flipside

• One of the major challenges of blockchain in healthcare is the technology’s adoption.
• To embrace blockchain and remain transparent about patient data, the medical industry must collaborate with others.

Why you should care

One way to get involved in the research process is by funding longevity projects using blockchain technology. Blockchain technology has many advantages for the medical sector, but it also presents technical difficulties.

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