Altos Labs
Altos Labs is an American biotechnology research company. Altos Labs' goal is to develop life extension therapies that can halt or reverse the human aging process. Specialized cell therapies based on induced pluripotent stem cells are to be developed for this purpose. The company was started in 2022. History. Altos Labs was formally started on 19 January 2022. The name Altos Labs is based on the city of Los Altos in California. The idea for Altos Labs originated with cell biologist and entrepreneur Richard D. Klausner, who co-founded the company with Hans Bishop. One of the early  investors of Altos Labs is an investment vehicle held for the benefit of the Breakthrough Foundation, founded by Israeli science and technology investor and philanthropist Yuri Milner and his wife Julia. The foundation supports existing and future philanthropic projects in fundamental sciences. Milner had previously shown interest in anti-aging technologies, in October 2020, he co-hosted a meeting where experts presented their research, reported on animal testing, and the concept for Altos Labs was developed. The company has been able to recruit prominent scientists such as Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte (known for his work on rejuvenation through cell reprogramming ), Steve Horvath (known for his work on the epigenetic aging clock), and Shinya Yamanaka (the Nobel Prize-winning inventor of cellular reprogramming in mammalian cells). The board of directors also includes well-known scientists such as Jennifer A. Doudna, David Baltimore, and Frances Arnold. In the process, Altos Labs pays scientists salaries up to ten times higher than at comparable research institutions. In 2021, Altos Labs was registered in the United States and the United Kingdom. It will operate out of California (U.S.) and Cambridge (U.K.), with some work done out of Japan. Altos Labs raised $3 billion in  a funding round from investors in January 2022. It is said to be the best funded biotech start-up to date. Investors reportedly included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Altos Labs plans to establish research facilities in Cambridge, the San Francisco Bay Area, and in San Diego as a first step. Atypical of a private company, the initial focus will be on basic research without immediate prospects of a commercially viable product. In January 2022 the company's president, Hans Bishop, argued, that Altos Labs was working on increasing the "healthspan" of humans and that longevity extension would only be "an  accidental consequence".