About the coin

VitaDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, has introduced VITA-FAST, an innovative funding model specifically designed for longevity research. These tokens are ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, representing fractional ownership of the Intellectual Property Non-Fungible Token (IP-NFT) derived from longevity research conducted at the Korolchuk Lab, Newcastle University. VITA-FAST token holders are granted governance rights over the intellectual property, thereby democratizing the decision-making processes in scientific research.

Main features

The project is primarily focused on discovering and developing therapeutic compounds capable of reactivating autophagy in Npc1 -/- cells. This involves screening bioactive and commercial small molecules in cell survival assays to identify potential autophagy activators that are not cytotoxic. The project employs advanced techniques such as luciferase-p6 clearance and Halo-GFP-LC3 orthogonal assays to achieve this goal.

How it works

The uniqueness of the project lies in its approach to identifying novel compounds that can induce autophagy in NPC1 -/- cells, which is a crucial process for treating Niemann-Pick Type C disease. Unlike existing treatments, this project uses high-throughput screening methods and innovative assays to discover compounds with high chemical variability and no similarity to existing autophagy inducers. This opens up possibilities for new intellectual property. The project, led by Dr. Korolchuk and his team at Newcastle University, has progressed from generating data on thousands of compounds using advanced screening assays to identifying lead compounds with potential autophagic properties. It has evolved to include the synthesis of derivatives of these compounds and is now moving towards drug translation processes, including pharmacokinetics and scalability studies.