Longevity science · Seattle
What if therapeutic discovery started with knowing how a molecule affects longevity?
Ora has built the largest lifespan dataset generated on one platform under one protocol: around 10,000 compounds tested for their effect on lifespan in a whole organism. Our first discoveries enable tissue to repair and regenerate from damage as if it were biologically younger. We are aiming these interventions at skin health first, showing that the promise of longevity medicine is more than skin deep.
How we work
Clinical candidates and cosmetic actives from the same screen.
Results from one track feed the other.
Skin health and cosmetic actives
Botanical-derived actives for the visible signs of photoaging. A cosmetic ingredient reaches human skin years before a drug reaches a patient. Formulation and consumer development run through partners.
Skin health →Lifespan in C. elegans, then assays in human skin cells, for both tracks.
Radiation dermatitis and beyond
Radiation dermatitis, injury repair, and eventually longevity medicine. A defined patient population, a graded endpoint, and no topical drug approved to treat it.
Pipeline →The discovery engine
We start in a whole living organism, and the readout is survival.
Compound library in
Approved and off-patent small molecules, natural and semi-natural products, peptides.
Robotic screening
Automated handling and continuous imaging across large parallel animal populations.
AI analysis
Computer vision and models that call hits, rank them, and fit dose-response.
Translation
Top hits into human skin cells and ex vivo human skin. Clinical candidates go on to mammalian studies.
Because the readout is survival rather than activity in one pathway, the screen picks up compounds regardless of mechanism. Mechanism is worked out afterwards, in human cells.
Slowing of movement, loss of resilience and healing, and shared molecular hallmarks of aging let us use this simple animal as a model. Less than 1 mm long, and you can tell by eye which animal is young and which is old. A whole life inside three weeks. Drag to compare adult C. elegans at day 5 and day 16.
Where this goes
Skin first, then radiation dermatitis, then longevity medicine.
The same screen and the same biology of damage and repair, applied in three settings.
Cosmetic application
Skincare actives reaching people first.
Cancer care
Radiation dermatitis, the first clinical indication.
Longevity medicine
Therapies for aging itself.
News
Latest from Ora
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Ben Blue speaks at the TimePie Longevity Forum in Shanghai
“Skin as the proving ground for longevity medicine”: a talk on the WormBot platform and why skin is where longevity interventions reach people first.
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mTOR fundraising campaign reaches goal
Rapamycin Longevity Labs and Ora Biomedical have reached the funding goal for a lifespan analysis of 601 mTOR modulators, the largest to date.
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Ben Blue, PhD, featured on the NUS Healthy Longevity lecture series
Ora co-founders Brian Kennedy and Ben Blue discuss Ora’s ongoing work.