31st March Newsletter
Hi guys. This is the third newsletter from the Institute of Rejuvenation Science (ICR). In these newsletters, we will tell you what we've done, since the last newsletter, to accelerate the development of rejuvenation science.
Visit to the pig farm is scheduled
Through contacts with pig breeders, we managed to arrange a visit to a pig farm in a neighboring town. We spoke to the pig farmer from this farm, who is willing to enter into a partnership with us and provide the blood of 10 free-range pigs. We will need the blood of these 10 animals, collected at regular slaughter, for the reproduction of Harold Katcher's seminal rat rejuvenation experiment. The purpose of the visit is to check that the farm and the husbandry process are suitable for our needs. The visit to the farm will take place in the first half of April 2025.
Fundraising has already exceeded 50%
Two large donations to the ICR for this experiment have been confirmed. DoNotAge.org has confirmed its donation of US$ 25,000 and we are now in the process of receiving the money into the bank account of our institute, the ICR. In addition, the Healthy Life Extension Society (Heales) has also confirmed its donation of US$ 10,000 and we have already received this money. As soon as we have the two donations in our account, these US$ 35,000 will be paid to Unicamp, our partner university, to pay for the costs of the part of the experiment they are carrying out. In fact, Unicamp is already spending resources on the experiment by keeping the rats that will take part alive in the animal facility. We need the animals to age naturally until they reach the age of 25 months (which will be in June 2026), at which point we will inject the pig plasma extracellular particles (PPEPs) into them.
In addition to these two large donations, all other donations to the ICR, whether recurring or single, have enabled us to surpass the 50% mark of the total US$ 75,000 we need to carry out this experiment. If you are not yet a donor and would like to contribute, you can donate by clicking here.
We will also have the French language
A French volunteer has offered to translate the ICR's communication materials — such as the website and newsletter — into French, at no financial cost to our institute. So, in the coming weeks, the ICR's website will have a French version, in addition to the current versions in Portuguese, Spanish and English. The next newsletters and social media will also have their content in French, along with the other three languages. This is a project for all of humanity, so the more languages the ICR speaks, the better.
This kind of donation of work is another way in which our supporters can contribute. If you would like to contribute to the ICR by donating your work, please contact us by email: info@rejuvenescimento.org .
Documentation with Unicamp
We are continuing with the bureaucratic work of completing various documents with the university Unicamp. The documents for the Ethics Committee for the Use of Animals are now ready. These documents were filled out by us and by Unicamp employees — Professor Dr. Marcelo Mori and the veterinarian responsible for the animal facility at Unicamp's Institute of Biology. We are also finalizing the documents relating to the establishment of the agreement between the ICR and Unicamp, and by the end of April 2025 this documentation will be finalized on our part, ready to be handed over to the university.
ICR in the media
On March 4, 2025, the YouTube channel Modern Healthspan published a new interview it conducted with us about the progress of the experiment (to watch it, click here). In addition, on March 6, 2025, an article about our rat rejuvenation experiment was published on the rejuvenation science news website LiveForever.club (to read the article, click here).
Reproductions of the experiment in other parts of the world
One of the ICR's objectives is to encourage people all over the world to reproduce Harold Katcher's seminal experiment in order to verify its scientific validity. We are going to reproduce this experiment here in Brazil in June 2026, following as closely as possible what is described in Harold Katcher's article in the journal Geroscience, published in 2023. However, several people from all over the world have recently contacted us to help them reproduce the experiment, usually with some modifications.
A person from Chile wants to organize the isolation of extracellular particles from plasma following a protocol similar to Harold Katcher's, but using blood from young humans. Their idea is to inject the extracellular particles — which according to Katcher's theory would be “age signaling” — into middle-aged or elderly people. Chile is a country with a relatively permissive regulatory landscape when it comes to injecting extracellular particles and vesicles into humans. Another country where we know this situation occurs, for example, is Japan. In addition to this person from Chile, a university researcher from Egypt contacted us with some questions about the experiment. They intend to extract the extracellular particles from the blood of cows and inject them into old dogs in order to rejuvenate them.
We were also contacted by someone from Israel who wanted to extract the extracellular particles from the blood of cows, but to treat humans. However, we made it clear to them that it would be necessary their team to have a technical staff with the necessary technical and regulatory knowledge and experience to carry out this experiment safely, both for those who would carry out the experiment and for the people who would use the extracellular particles. We therefore encouraged them to hire a qualified technician who could follow the methodology described in our article safely and effectively. A person from the United States also approached us for information about the equipment we used, as they also wanted to carry out a similar experiment with horses.
We are happy that people from all over the world want to test this treatment. We believe that it will only have scientific validity if it is rigorously tested by various groups around the world. However, it is important to note that although the extraction of the extracellular particles — following the procedure described in Katcher's article — is a relatively simple process, it must be carried out in a suitable location and by people with appropriate technical training and experience, as it involves biological materials and chemical products. In addition, the regulatory requirements of the country in which it is carried out must be observed. These precautions are important to ensure the safety of the people carrying out the experiment and the people or animals taking part in it.
Videos by our vice-president Nina Torres Zanvettor
The ICR's technical responsible and vice-president, Nina Torres Zanvettor, has published two videos in English on the ICR's YouTube channel to inform the public via this social media about the experiment and why we are carrying it out, giving lots of details about everything surrounding the experiment. You can watch these videos by clicking here and here.
The publication of the safety experiment article is moving forward
The process for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal of our article about the preliminary safety experiment carried out in 2024 is moving forward. In this experiment, also carried out with the participation of the university Unicamp, we injected young rats with pig plasma extracellular particles (PPEPs) following the procedure described by Katcher in the article published in Geroscience in 2023. The aim was to test acute immunogenicity and toxicity, and the result was the absence of both. The article is now being reviewed by a scientific journal. We hope to have a final response from the scientific journal in the next few weeks. In any case, the article can be read on bioRxiv by clicking here. However, the publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is important for public acceptance of the experiment and its results.
This is a collective effort
This experiment is a collective effort to reproduce Harold Katcher's seminal study, in which the ICR relies on the contribution of those interested in the realization of the experiment. Thus, if you know someone who might be interested in the content of this newsletter, you can forward it to them. Also, if you are not yet a financial contributor of the ICR, we invite you to become one by clicking on this link.
So that's it. We're carrying on, and we won't rest until we've implemented rejuvenation in human beings. See you next time!