Dog Years DAO - Vision Paper

A lab mouse can never choose to be immortal. 

A beloved companion, graying at the muzzle, can look at you with trust earned across ten thousand years of co-evolution. 

Which can teach us more about longevity?

Despite decades of research and billions in funding, longevity research has barely moved the needle on aging. This reflects a deeper trend:  the machinery of drug discovery is seizing up. Eroom's Law—Moore's Law spelled backward, like a curse—tells us that drug development costs double every nine years. This is no mere economic failure, but a spiritual malaise afflicting our collective ability to heal one another.

The current system manufactures distance: between researcher and subject, investor and patient, data and meaning. Lab animals suffer without consent, investors extract with privileged terms, and countless breakthroughs die in “the Valley of Death”, the place between discovery and deployment, where good science goes to die for lack of capital, coordination, or both.

Dog Years DAO will bridge this valley of treatment development by connecting interspecies friendship with scientific coordination.

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Longevity is biomedicine’s final challenge

The current research paradigm treats longevity like any other disease: isolate variables, minimize complexity, and seek singular, patentable solutions. But aging resists this reductionism. Findings from mice, despite generations of sacrifice, have translated poorly to humans. Biomarkers promise clarity while obscuring the deeper mechanics. Human trials cost fortunes and span decades. The tools that conquered infectious disease and tamed acute conditions get stuck on aging's intricate web of processes.

Companion animals offer a second path. They share enough of our biology and environment to be relevant, while remaining practical to study over their lifetimes. When we see our own dogs living better, longer lives, we will become not just data points, but advocates. Their health, tracked through years of relationship rather than months in cages, will tell truths that no surrogate markers can capture.

We are not the first to recognize this opportunity. The Dog Aging Project has demonstrated that longitudinal companion animal research is both feasible and valuable, tracking thousands of dogs across their lifespans. Loyal has carved a new regulatory pathway, enabling longevity interventions to reach the US veterinary market. These pioneers have laid the groundwork upon which we build.

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Decentralized science may be the solution

Distributed ledgers are the means by which we might build scientific institutions that can be held accountable. A reformation of science is overdue, evidenced by the dysfunction and grift unfolding from COVID. A new vertical for biomedical discovery, validation, and distribution could not only unlock immense value, but also allow longevity science to flourish. 

VitaDAO showed that coordinating and funding longevity research with crypto is viable. DogYearsDAO will extend VitaDAO’s example, by focusing not just on generating IP, but data sets that are valuable in their own right. Tokens will flow to those who provide data, care, attention, and the gift of their companion's participation; enabling all to become stakeholders in the discovery. 

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The First Test

Follistatin is a naturally occurring protein that rises naturally during youth and vigor. It reduces the breakdown of lean (muscle) tissue, and lowers inflammation. Follistatin can be delivered through gene therapy to address both inflammation and muscle wasting for months of relief. It has been studied extensively in the application of extending healthspan and even lifespan. It is no cure for death, but should make a decline more gentle. 

Our study embraces uncertainty through a delayed-start design—some dogs receive treatment immediately, others after three months of observation. We will measure mobility and inflammation markers, range of movement, and track activity via a biometric collar. For those who choose them, advanced imaging (MRI, CT) will be covered by remuneration in tokens. 

The initial study will track 30-50 dogs for one year. But this is merely the beginning, as the goal is to expand the study to embrace the complexities of pursuing many treatments in hopes of making our canine’s golden years more golden. 

Notably: humans tested this gene therapy first. Not on unwilling subjects, but on ourselves. The author organized a clinical study, testing the treatment on 42 humans and himself, before treating his family's elderly, arthritic dog. This inversion of the traditional research hierarchy—from human to companion animal to broader application—encapsulates a new ethical framework for biotechnology.

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The Final Word

In extending the lives of our companions, we are not defeating death, but befriending it.

By forming DAOs with distributed intelligence, we are not replacing trust, but scaling it.

In testing therapies on ourselves first, we are not being reckless, but taking responsibility.

Dog Years DAO is an experiment in interspecies cooperation, a prayer encoded in smart contracts, and a bet that love scales better than extraction.

The bridge across the Valley of Death will be built with legible trust and genuine love.