For many years I have been working toward having a lab to do aging research. This first lab is doing research with mice, which I hope to expand some of the basic knowledge about aging. I started my adventures in research in 2013 when I hired my first biologist in Sri Lanka. She was extremely helpful, introducing me to people as well as doing literature research and helping me with many of my small projects.
In early 2017 I wanted to start doing lab work, experimenting with mice. So my biologist and I went to a number of universities in Sri Lanka (where she used to live), as well as some commercial labs, to find one that was interested in doing aging research. We finally found one that was building an Animal House. Their purpose was to research venomous snakes (photo of a cobra they have below). But to raise snakes they needed mice to feed them. So we reached an agreement that they would build the facility large enough to house their experiments and mine as well. In exchange I would provide them with a bit of money to help build the facility plus pay for a lab technician to run my experiments.
My biologist got married and moved to England, so in early 2018 I hired another biologist. Right now she is doing research for me, plus keeping me informed on the construction of the Animal House, as well as doing research for me.
Eventually I hope to have more labs operating, but this is a start. Eventually I would like to do experiments in monkeys, but that is a long way off yet. I want to use monkeys because they are so similar to people that aging solutions found in them are more likely to apply to people.
Over the last few years I have sent quite a bit of money there. Here is the budget thus far:
| Date | Sri Lanka Rupees | Focus |
| 17-Mar | 95,550 | Animal House work |
| 17-Apr | 96,200 | Animal House work |
| 17-May | 149,000 | Animal House work |
| 17-Jun | 149,000 | Animal House work |
| 17-Jul | 150,000 | Animal House work |
| 17-Sep | 88,200 | Animal House work |
| 17-Oct | 88,200 | Animal House work |
| 17-Nov | 87,600 | Animal House work |
| 17-Dec | 87,600 | Animal House work |
| 18-Jan | 88,200 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Feb | 88,800 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Mar | 44,700 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Apr | 44,700 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-May | 45,600 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Jul | 46,500 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Aug | 46500 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Sep | 47100 | Setting up mice, snakes |
| 18-Oct | 51,000 | Construction: mouse lab |
| 18-Nov | 104,975 | Construction: mouse lab |
| 18-Dec | 104,975 | Construction: mouse lab |
| Total | 1,704,400 |
Note:
The exchange rate between US dollars and Sri Lankan rupees is (very roughly) 150:1 over this time period. However, in terms of buying power the exchange rate is closer to 15:1. In other words my money goes about 15 times as far in Sri Lanka. For example a full time professor earns about 60,000 rupees a month (roughly $400); a lab technician earns about 1/3 of that. Other costs are similarly cheap.
Defeating Aging 