A Outsider ' s Popular Science View of the Longevity Industry and Academia

A brace of popular science articles on aging research were recently published at the Economist. Like many of these views from a distance written by journalists on the outside, peering into the field, one must assume that its existence is largely the result of the sizable investments made over the last two years into the development of therapies based on partial reprogramming. The Altos Labs funding in particular represented a meaningful fraction of all investment into biotech made that year. That tends to attract attention. From there, an investigator would notice an additional broad focus on cellular senescence, many companies and research groups working towards the development of senolytic therapies to clear senescent cells from aged tissues. After that, however, there are few obvious high points for the outside observer to focus on. Epigenetic clocks, perhaps. The relentless self-promoters such as David Sinclair. But it quickly starts to become harder to figure out what is going on, which of the hundreds of small biotech companies and research groups in the field, trying to treat age-related disease by focusing on mechanisms of aging, are important. It is certainly the case that theories of aging abound, and researchers disagree on which paths are best. A sizable fraction of the progress of the next twenty years in the matter of treating aging as a medical condition will arise not because of the where the mainstream is focused, but will occur because a few small bio...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs