VitaLabs Projects Up for Voting: Help Pick the Next Big Ideas

About VitaLabs
VitaLabs is VitaDAO's research program focused on finding new ways to improve health and extend life. It supports researchers with funding, mentorship, and resources to explore bold ideas that could change the way we think about aging​.

Your Vote Matters
The VitaDAO community is now voting to choose four projects to receive:

• Funding to carry out experiments.

• Mentorship from top scientists.

• Resources to help their ideas grow.

This is your chance to support the ideas you believe in! The voting process uses quadratic voting, which gives more weight to projects with broad support. If you hold Vita tokens, you can vote now on the Snapshot platform.

Projects to Vote On

1. Targeting the Key Neuroinflammatory Pathway in Brain Aging

This project seeks to characterize the key gene regulatory programs that drive a healthy aging brain toward pathological changes (such as deposition of senile plaques), especially via age- related neuroinflammation and microglial activation.

2. The Genome Expansion Project

Genome dysregulation is a nearly universal characteristic of aging, largely due to increased transposable elements (TEs) activity. These DNA segments, which can move within the genome, constitute about 50% of our DNA, but aging research often focuses on the less than 1% that are coding regions.

3. Lengthening telomeres with hTERT expression-inducing small molecules

Our team has developed a family of small molecules (analogs) that induce expression of hTERT in human cell lines, which in turn increases the amount and activity of telomerase. This would ideally involve two phases: testing 5 molecules in C. elegans and then mice.

4. Precision medicine for brain health informed by gene-mapped MRI features

The published literature suggests that inter-individual variability in regional brain aging dynamics can be mapped to gene variants, gene network architectures, and gene expression patterns, which can inform personalized interventions for the maintenance of brain health.

5. Unlocking Longevity Through Stem Cell Rejuvenation using single-cell analysis

By leveraging single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), spatial transcriptomics, and multi-omics data integration, we will systematically study the molecular mechanisms of stem cell aging; and identify novel targets and therapies to enhance their regenerative capacity.

6. Precision Telomere Mapping: Pathways to Longevity and Disease Prevention

Mapping and modulating telomere dynamics across tissues to uncover aging pathways and develop precision therapies for longevity and disease prevention

7. Enzyme engineering for crosslinked collagen turnover in the extracellular matrix

The project postulates extracellular matrix stiffening as the upstream cause of the hallmarks of aging and