in nature biotechnology, contributing to the department of defense's five organ-banking grant programs, seeding an "estimated $15 million into collaborations among 35 groups." the organ preservation alliance, an initiative coordinating research and stakeholders focused on the preservation of tissues and organs. in 2015, opa became an independent tax exempt non-profit organization. supercentenarian research foundation in 2006, methuselah contributed capital and fiscal sponsorship to launch the supercentenarian research foundation (srf). srf was formed to study why supercentenarians, people over 110 years of age, live longer than most, and why they die. eight autopsies of supercentenarians were conducted by srf, with six indicating senile cardiac transthyretin amyloidosis at the time of death. with this disease, a defective protein "amasses in and clogs blood vessels, forcing the heart to work harder and eventually fail." sens research foundation main article: sens research foundation from 2003 to 2009, methuselah foundation served as the backbone organization for the strategies for engineered negligible senescence (sens) program, a long-term research framework developed by aubrey de grey. the sens program aims to prevent or reverse seven forms of molecular or cellular damage associated with aging. during that time, de grey and david gobel established sens-related research programs on human bioremedial biology – "getting the crud out" in methuselah's parlance – at rice university and arizona state university. the programs were the first use of environmental remediation principles directed at reversing "pollution" in human cells. additionally, methuselah sponsored a series of sens-focused roundtables and conferences, and funded the writing of ending aging, co-authored by de grey and michael rae. under de grey's continued leadership, sens spun out from methuselah as the sens research foundation in 2009. monetary support due to the close relationship between the methuselah foundation and sens research foundation and their common activities, there are sometimes misunderstandings about their budgets, directions, and amounts of donations which can be distributed between these organizations for various purposes. in 2004, the methuselah foundation began a donor initiative called "the methuselah 300" ("the 300"), a community of philanthropic donors pledging $25,000 over 25 years, at a minimum of $1,000 annually, toward the organization. the initiative was named after the 300 spartans who held the pass at thermopylae in 480 bc during the greco-persian war. in addition, in 2015, the foundation began memorializing the 300 donors with a monument at st. thomas island in the u.s. virgin islands. on september 16, 2006, peter thiel, co-founder and former ceo of the online payments system paypal, announced that he was pledging $3.5 million to the methuselah foundation and the sens programs "to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging". in 2007, justin bonomo, a professional poker player, pledged 5% of his tournament winnings to sens research. in january 2018, the anonymous principal of the pineapple fund donated $1 million to the methuselah foundation, in addition to $2 million donated to sens research foundation. on may 12, 2021, vitalik buterin, a co-founder of ethereum and transhumanist, made a series of donations to the foundation. the three transfers, made minutes apart, contained 432 trillion dogelon mars, worth about $336 million at the time of transfer, and two transfers of 1000 ether in total, worth more than $2 million.